I think state control is felt fundamentally differently in practice if this state control actually serves the people unlike in the west where it serves exclusively capital interests.

> What I am dismayed by in discussions like this is how simplistic they are

Once you really notice the anti-china framing literally everywhere in media, it is really hard for it all not to become meaningless propaganda. It's itself no different from state control just because it's private media because that private controls the state. We aren't allowed a clear eyed view of china, only a carefully curated antagonistic one. But they aren't our enemies at all, it's absurd how obvious that is, the west is the aggressor, not china.