If you speak Chinese and get on any Chinese social media you will see a lot of people criticizing the government. China has more people publicly striking every year than the US for sure, probably US and EU combined. You might get disappeared for plotting sedition or something but that isn't simply criticizing the government.
Indeed you often see people petitioning the central government to intervene against the provincial governments (which are very powerful and ideologically diverse, representing the 5 broad fractions (not factions) of the CPC (capitalist reformist, Left-nationalist, neo-confucian nationalist, Party-centre, and Neo Maoist))
Conversely, local and provincial governments are often sharply critical of central government policy and say so. The Shanghai left-wing papers (of which Sixth Tone is an English offshoot) are often shockingly so.
I get it mostly from actual party members. That said my understanding is second hand, the actual groups in the party split along several axis and my Mandarin is aggressively middling. So take what I say with several grains of salt. Also keep in mind party members are quite rightly restricted in what they can say and I am reading between the lines.
If you speak Chinese and get on any Chinese social media you will see a lot of people criticizing the government. China has more people publicly striking every year than the US for sure, probably US and EU combined. You might get disappeared for plotting sedition or something but that isn't simply criticizing the government.
Indeed you often see people petitioning the central government to intervene against the provincial governments (which are very powerful and ideologically diverse, representing the 5 broad fractions (not factions) of the CPC (capitalist reformist, Left-nationalist, neo-confucian nationalist, Party-centre, and Neo Maoist))
Conversely, local and provincial governments are often sharply critical of central government policy and say so. The Shanghai left-wing papers (of which Sixth Tone is an English offshoot) are often shockingly so.
I didn't know about the fractions in the Party, where can I read more about it?
I get it mostly from actual party members. That said my understanding is second hand, the actual groups in the party split along several axis and my Mandarin is aggressively middling. So take what I say with several grains of salt. Also keep in mind party members are quite rightly restricted in what they can say and I am reading between the lines.