This is literally my parents. They told me to stop criticizing the people in power, even going as far as saying I shouldn’t criticize the government of my former country. I don’t even have citizenship in my former country anymore, not sure how I could even get in trouble for criticizing is effecively a foreign country to me. (I’m talking about PRC btw).
My mom told me to “just focus on improving your own life and stop worrying about things like you can’t control like politics” (as in, both the politics of my former country and the politics of my current country)
Am I in the wrong here? Should I just keep quiet and not say anything so that I don’t “get in trouble”?
If there’re family in the PRC, they could certainly be on the hook if you’re spotted at events Beijing deems sensitive (things to do with Taiwan, Xinjiang, Tibet, the '89 Massacres, 66-77, etc.)
I’d also reckon that your family grew up either with direct experience of, or in the spectre of, the Cultural Revolution. The psychic damage of that can not be understated.
It’ s also that the social contract in China is very different to that of the US and Anglophone/European culture countries.
There are valid, logical, reasons for your family’s point of view. But it is also a viewpoint that is willing to tolerate a bad society in order for an adequate life personally.