Love and Hate; sweet and sour; sugar and salt

A Uighur rests near Chinese paramilitary police in protective cages
in China's northwest

Those of us living, working, studying in China, even back in the seventies, always said that we had a "love-hate" relationship with China.
Plenty to love: the language, calligraphy, food, the culture, its history, it's people (I've loved many).
Plenty to hate: the language, calligr..... (etc....).
So I relate to Kristof in the New York Times (here in the Seattle Times):

I lived in China, speak Chinese and deeply admire the country. Yet I am increasingly repulsed by Xi’s China, for he is dragging the country in the wrong direction by imprisoning lawyers, journalists and people of faith; tightening controls over the internet; creating international security risks in the South China Sea; and fostering a personality cult around himself.

And also relate to this:

In fairness, it’s also true that the Chinese government has helped lift more people out of poverty than any other government in human history. Just since 1990, the mortality rate for children under 5 has fallen in China by 83 percent — suggesting, by my calculations, that an additional 676,000 Chinese children survive each year who previously would have died.
Those of us who condemn China for human rights violations must also acknowledge this uncomfortable truth: A child born in Beijing today has a substantially longer life expectancy (82 years) than a child born in Washington, D.C. (77 years).
In short, the Xi regime is complicated. It cheats, oppresses and brutalizes, but it also educates, enriches and saves lives.

As I've said rather a number of times. In short: China good; Beijing regime bad (Xi, especially).