Most people think that China is a country without freedom of speech. They would be wrong if they are talking about 99% of daily life... You are pretty much free to say what you want, but if you form a group, or try to speak your mind in protest, that's where things get messy.

All I'm going to say is that as I sit here in Beijing in 2019 reeling from getting put through the wringer of what passes for a legal system over here for even the faintest suspicion of having passingly "made remarks critical of China," it is clear how long ago this was written. If some clown passing you by on the streets tells the local PSB goons "dees laowai spika not good tings a-baotta dee mah-tee Chah-nah," you get surrounded by the prissy little parade-ground princesses who masquerade as a police force in this third-world pit of a country, and have to fight your way out.

The most ironic thing is that the accusations were made in regards to the one and only venue in the world where I haven't made remarks absolutely lambasting the self-anointed Zhongxin Guojia, namely, t work.