You're right, but the trend in the US is towards more repression, while the trend in China is towards less. We are destroying our middle class, they are creating and growing theirs at an incredible rate.
The attitude that I get from a lot of Chinese is that they feel the present government is a necessary evil - i.e., in exchange for many political and religious freedoms, they get progress, and an immense improvement to the quality of life of hundreds of millions... where before there was only starvation and misery. And progress they have gotten, which is more than I can say for us in the last decade or so.
The Chineese exchange students, that is, the ones who are not nationalized in America, the off the boat people, at my school think rather differently. They consider the government of China, for the most part, simply the nature of china. It isn't a necessary evil, its just the way things are.
I've had Chinese coworkers openly feel sorry for me because I have asian features and I don't know how to read/write Chinese characters, and I'm not even Chinese!
We've all got different friends, but I'd offer a different perspective. Most Chinese I know dislike their government, but are apathetic towards it, or too busy trying to live their own lives.
And China is recently tending towards more sophisticated repression, rather than less of it in general. Perhaps the US and China will end up in the same place!
The attitude that I get from a lot of Chinese is that they feel the present government is a necessary evil - i.e., in exchange for many political and religious freedoms, they get progress, and an immense improvement to the quality of life of hundreds of millions... where before there was only starvation and misery. And progress they have gotten, which is more than I can say for us in the last decade or so.