If you have taken western media's word for literally anything regarding China, then yes, you have absolutely, 100% been spoonfed imperialist lies. Western media is inherently tied to furthering western imperialist interests. It doesn't mean literally every single thing they say is a blatant lie, but it does mean that they will twist anything and everything they can in order to convince as many people as possible that "we are the good guys, they are the bad guys!" Even truths are so obscured and misrepresented that they may as well be falsehoods.

If you want to hone your sense of whether or not the media is lying to you, grab yourself a copy of Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti (or just read it here ), a book which you may have seen spoken about in your time on Hexbear. It's a relatively short book which will give you plenty of straightforward examples of the way that western media twists facts to serve their interests.

Or you can get the turbo short version and just read the infamous Parenti quote:

“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

edit just to say: if you've bought the media line on China, you've been misled a hundred times more egregiously about North Korea