Yes the covid lockdowns was a more severe case of the Chinese government trying to pretend they had done nothing wrong, which it has a history of doing. I’m not saying china doesn’t still try to suppress dissent and hide information, and the police force is basically hired thugs. I was just saying the citizens can and do make disagreements known if the government is going against the people’s wishes, and they might be arrested and “re-educated” but there’s less risk of their whole family being disappeared for example.

I would also ask how the news of using blank A4 paper spread around to others who began protesting, which shows that opinions and dissent do spread around China regardless of the government’s intent to suppress it.

I suppose I can’t really say for the average Chinese person because most people I know were because of exchange programs or they had moved to the US, but in my experience they seemed to know what was happening and just say “these people are hurting China so I don’t care/ they deserve it.” I think the exact quote I heard was “Yes but these people are religious extremists who are causing massive problems for China” (in reference to the uyghurs). I think it probably is the case they are just fed propaganda and most either believe it or don’t care enough to check it.