It's the second IME. We talk all the time about our concerns with the CPC, our hopes and disappointments with their foreign policy, and our thoughts on their political/economic situation. Critically discussing China is pretty much half of what we do in the news comm.

The people who say "I was banned just for being critical of China" never seem to want to specify what those criticisms were, but every time you go looking through the modlog you find the same shit: Commie hivemind spy balloon Winnie the Pooh uyhgur tinyman square. It's like going up to some people talking about Korea and saying "don't you weirdos know that they eat rats and push the trains by hand"? It's not just the propaganda that gets them banned; everyone starts out full of propaganda, and most people here will paitently clarify things for you if you ask. No, it's the smug doubling and tripling-down on ignorance at every turn that gets them the boot. Then they run back to their home instance to tell the story of how the tankies murdered them, and the mythology builds.