I'd like to chime in and say to the first commenter that I agree with everything said there. I'm Chinese-American, born in China, raised in the US, and went back to China three years ago where I lived until now. I worked in Beijing in the English teaching industry, as a manager because I'm fluent in both Mandarin and English. As such, I came to realize that many foreigners -- even those who'd lived in China for a few years -- don't get the full picture of how Chinese citizens themselves view their government. As Americans, we tend to vocalize our criticisms of our government quite loudly, and I think for the most part, we value transparency. But to many Chinese, there's a strong sense of "our business" versus "public business". My Chinese co-workers all knew a lot more about the behind-the-scenes workings of the government than Western media would lead us to believe. And they would share those observations with me, because they viewed me as one of them. They would not, however, share them with other foreigners who worked in the company, because they were outsiders, not part of the "family". Of course, this isn't always true, but it's definitely something that I think the Western media doesn't realize.