China allows tourism, but I don’t think its present leadership considers it among the major ways to win hearts and minds. Restrictions on where foreigners are a

China allows tourism, but I don’t think its present leadership considers it among the major ways to win hearts and minds. Restrictions on where foreigners are allowed to sleep at night remain in place, tourists are subject to the Great Firewall during their time in the country unless they know how to get around that, and some parts of the country that were quite open in the late 20th century and early millennium (Xinjiang, Tibet) are now much harder to access. Most of the post-Soviet countries hungry for tourism income and extension of soft power eventually lifted those kinds of hassles on visitors.