The problem with this article (like so many others about China) is that it conflates the entirety of China with two cities: Shanghai and Beijing. The vast major

The problem with this article (like so many others about China) is that it conflates the entirety of China with two cities: Shanghai and Beijing. The vast majority of Chinese live outside these two cities, and the cities themselves are significantly more modern and Western-oriented than other cities or the Chinese countryside. Taking attitudes in these cities to be representative of attitudes in China as a whole is equivalent to taking the attitudes of Washingtonians, Los Angelenos and San Franciscans and using them to approximate attitudes of Americans.