I think that’s very well put. It’s kind of funny thinking that if the commentator made an equally tithy (false or not) saying throwing shade on China in private on WeChat they’d be censured within a day or two.
I can remember being in high school, still in the age of minority, and feeling joy when one of the louder, dumber cooks finally kicked off.
I kind of suspect Beijing and the CCP of not being so colorful at the federal level, and rather just being a giant executive bureaucracy with principle, law, and regulation intermixed freely, minimal federation, which leaves them largely ignored by society and festering until they're in your face enforcing lock downs -- like an authoritarian military state.
I unfortunately don't read a lick of Mandarin, and I'm not sure where to get a more optimistic view about what goes on over there, but I'm curious.