Keep in mind you're also a (most likely) obvious foreigner taking pictures of perhaps a sensitive building in a foreign country. You don't think that given the current geopolitical climate, Asian people in the US taking pics of say, Mar-a-Lago, or a military complex or even an industrial park would sometimes run into trouble?
Also, you may have been to China, but have you ever taken the time while there to attempt to understand why there might be some support for the government? This is a country where even among the fairly young, most experienced poverty as children, where their parents and their grandparents have experienced hunger, sometimes severe famine, being invaded and conquered and brutalized by the Japanese, then civil war, and the civil strife and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese families are close knit, most grow up living with their grandparents - these generational experiences are ingrained into the fabric of society. There's genuine and heartfelt appreciation for the recent policies and stability that has finally let a people raise themselves out from that poverty. (China in the 50's, 60's, and 70's was much poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa - per capita GDP was something from 1/2-1/3 of even places like the Congo and Zimbabwe). There is pride too, overwhelming pride in the grit and determination and hard work that has been poured into all that development and progress. Obviously, that's not to say that there isn't plenty of criticism and opposition and people making fun of aspects of the government and government policies, but the general support is not fake or coerced. I imagine it's not that different from the way a certain generation of Americans from a particular economic class saw FDR and his whole New Deal administration.
Just keep in mind that sometimes, depending on their background story and life experiences, people can see the same things in a very different light. They also have different utility curves - some might value a tootsie roll over a twix bar, some might value liberty over their own life, or some might just value stability and the opportunity to live their lives and raise their children over anything else in the world.
Also, you may have been to China, but have you ever taken the time while there to attempt to understand why there might be some support for the government? This is a country where even among the fairly young, most experienced poverty as children, where their parents and their grandparents have experienced hunger, sometimes severe famine, being invaded and conquered and brutalized by the Japanese, then civil war, and the civil strife and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese families are close knit, most grow up living with their grandparents - these generational experiences are ingrained into the fabric of society. There's genuine and heartfelt appreciation for the recent policies and stability that has finally let a people raise themselves out from that poverty. (China in the 50's, 60's, and 70's was much poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa - per capita GDP was something from 1/2-1/3 of even places like the Congo and Zimbabwe). There is pride too, overwhelming pride in the grit and determination and hard work that has been poured into all that development and progress. Obviously, that's not to say that there isn't plenty of criticism and opposition and people making fun of aspects of the government and government policies, but the general support is not fake or coerced. I imagine it's not that different from the way a certain generation of Americans from a particular economic class saw FDR and his whole New Deal administration.
Just keep in mind that sometimes, depending on their background story and life experiences, people can see the same things in a very different light. They also have different utility curves - some might value a tootsie roll over a twix bar, some might value liberty over their own life, or some might just value stability and the opportunity to live their lives and raise their children over anything else in the world.