Tankies are conservatives. The worldview is defined by ingroup loyalty. I am not joking when I say people in this mindset do not grasp objective truth, as a concept.

There's also a non-conservative right wing. You can spot them exiting their party with bootprints on their ass, because they actually bought some round of bullshit, and refused to abandon it when people up the hierarchy needed different bullshit.

They've completely lost the plot in what left/right was intended to identify, and instead associate it with "the guys I like are left and the bad guys are right."

They're just just right-wing nationalists arguing for merit-based authoritarianism based off a different set of merits than the the white-christian nationalists of the west. Despite that, they have more in common with them then genuine leftists, who see the rule of any one party as invalid.

It's in the law in PRC that you are not allowed to be a trouble to public order. It's written pretty much like that with no further details. They don't have to ignore their own laws. They merely have to interpret it.

Okay disclaimer: I did not actually say that type of stuff, especially not in the capital. I wouldn't dare actually saying it irl while in China.

But parents and grandparents were alive in the Mao era, they've seen lots of shit, the struggle sessions...

They talk about it in the livingroom/diningroom a lot...

I was raised with the "do not criticize government" mindset when I was old enough to start having these opinions.

Suppressing dissent is actaully tame compared to the fact that I was the 2nd child of my family and I wasn't even legal, if they had found out that my mom had me, they would have taken her and forced an abortion. (circa 2002)

My mom told me about that One Child Policy stuff and I told her I hate the CCP, then she's like "Okay you can say it at home, but be careful don't say it outside, don't post these things [meaning political things] online, the goverment people might come and you'd be in trouble" (paraphrased from Cantonese)

And when she said that, she meant it as in both criticisms against PRC and US government, so since we're now in the US and she fear arrestes or deportations if we criticize the US government too much, and she also don't wanna get banned from China / and she still have sisters (aka: my aunts) living there... So I was told to just focus on my life, to stop "worrying about things I can't change"