Southern Italy. We’ve had burglars once actually, but that’s about it. I’ve since then also lived in Switzerland and Sweden, which are obviously much safer. Perhaps I’m too optimistic, but I don’t see the point in worrying about this. I take my precautions like anyone else and that’s about it.
Anyhow, sorry to hear about your experience. That’s how statistics work I guess. For any particularly unlucky person there’s a correspondingly lucky person that averages them out.
Conning is definitely more of a thing, but I wouldn’t place it in the same league as pickpocketing of tourists. Which of course is a thing, I don’t want to deny it. Just that using it as a reason to avoid Europe is absolutely blowing it out of proportion.
I think you're severely underestimating how safe China has become. Nowadays people don't even lock their motorbikes, and can leave their laptops in coffeeshops unattended for half an hour. You definitely can't do either of that in Netherlands. Maybe in some small village where everybody knows everybody else it's still possible.
That is the baseline that Chinese are comparing to nowadays. That's why even many what we call safe places feel unsafe to them.
Also consider that just 15 years ago, China was definitely way unsafer than many European countries. China upgraded from a low public trust to high public trust society in front of people's living memories. This is what you have to consider when considering why Chinese people are happy with their government. All this voting stuff is just theoretical benefit. In Netherlands, our politics have been a mess for more than a decade. Voting certainly didn't solve the problems.