1984 in China: Does the Orwellian Comparison Hold Up?
George Orwell’s novel 1984 portrays a totalitarian state that maintains power through surveillance, censorship, and propaganda. It is therefore no surprise that Western media frequently invoke Orwell when discussing modern China, especially its system of internet censorship.
But does the comparison actually hold up?
To answer that question, we need to separate facts from assumptions, and reality from political narratives.
As a side note, I will not cover the alleged “social credit system” in this discussion, having already examined and debunked the myths surrounding it.
How China’s censorship system works
China’s online censorship mainly operates through two mechanisms: the Great Firewall and content moderation.
Anyone who has visited China knows that the Great Firewall blocks access to certain foreign websites and apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and Google. Content moderation, meanwhile, refers to Chinese social-media platforms removing posts or banning users when content crosses rules set by regulators.
Western commentary often presents this as proof that all criticism is suppressed. But the reality is more complicated. Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University, estimated that China experienced roughly 180,000 “mass incidents” in 2010—about 490 incidents per day. These included protests, labor disputes, petitions, and demonstrations. In practice, many such incidents are handled through negotiation, mediation, and local compromise rather than simple repression.
The myth that Chinese citizens cannot express grievances
A second common claim is that internet moderation means Chinese citizens have no meaningful way to voice concerns, criticize government performance, or push for change. That, too, is an oversimplification.
The key distinction in China’s political system is that citizens cannot change the ruling Party through competitive national elections. They can, however, elect officials at the local level, from which China’s meritocratic promotion system takes over, allowing officials who demonstrate strong performance to advance through the ranks. While the political system itself remains stable, government policies are often adjusted. The authorities regularly respond to economic pressures, social concerns, and public dissatisfaction.
This is not merely a claim made by Chinese state media. Research from Harvard University has consistently found high levels of public satisfaction with the Chinese government over many years. Whatever interpretation one gives to those findings, they suggest that public opinion in China cannot simply be dismissed as a product of fear, coercion, or manufactured consent alone.
People in China do complain. Local protests occur, labor disputes happen, and citizens regularly raise grievances about housing, wages, education, pensions, corruption, pollution, and public services. Western reporting often emphasizes censorship while paying less attention to the mechanisms through which complaints are processed.
How the Chinese government gathers feedback
In fact, the Chinese government actively seeks information about public sentiment. Authorities conduct surveys and polling across provinces to identify dissatisfaction and emerging social problems. Citizens are encouraged to report corruption, unsafe conditions, unpaid wages, poor services, and administrative failures.
One well-known example is the 12345 hotline, a nationwide 24/7 government complaint system. Citizens can report potholes, broken infrastructure, labor disputes, unpaid wages, excessive noise, or problems with local services. There are even widely shared videos online of foreigners in China reporting hazards such as a damaged manhole cover and seeing repairs begin within a day. The system processes enormous numbers of requests each year and is designed to ensure local governments respond.
China’s governance model also emphasizes administrative performance. Local officials are evaluated partly on whether they solve problems, maintain stability, and meet policy targets. If they fail badly enough, they can face disciplinary action or replacement.
The broader point is that China relies not only on elections as a measure of public approval, but also on continuous feedback mechanisms: complaint hotlines, surveys, consultations, social-media monitoring, and local-level performance reviews.
A recent example: the K-visa backlash
Western media appeared visibly surprised in September 2025 when China’s proposed K-visa program for foreign STEM graduates triggered a major online backlash. According to the prevailing Western narrative, Chinese social media are tightly controlled and dissent is swiftly suppressed. Yet the visa proposal sparked an enormous public debate, with related hashtags reportedly attracting hundreds of millions of views within just a few days.
Even CNN acknowledged the scale of the reaction:
“Discussion of the K-visa category has dominated social media in recent days, with top-trending hashtags related to the visa reaching roughly half a billion views in just two days.”
Citizens openly voiced concerns about employment opportunities, educational prospects, and fairness. State-affiliated outlets, including People’s Daily, acknowledged the public dissatisfaction and indicated that the concerns would be taken seriously and potential adjustments considered.
The episode demonstrated that controversial policies in China can generate large-scale online criticism and vigorous public debate. Rather than simply suppressing dissent, the authorities monitor public sentiment, respond to criticism, and often seek policy adjustments or compromises aimed at addressing widespread concerns.
Compare that with many self-described Western democracies, where even massive protests can be ignored for months or years, producing little or no tangible change. While citizens may enjoy greater freedom to criticize their governments (though this freedom is increasingly being eroded), that freedom does not translate into meaningful influence over policy outcomes. In practice, many of the problems affecting ordinary people remain unresolved, as political power is concentrated in the hands of wealthy elites, major donors, and powerful interest groups that exert disproportionate influence over the politicians they help elect. In China, by contrast, billionaires are far more constrained politically and are not able to translate economic power into comparable influence over national policy in the same direct way.
Why the Great Firewall exists, according to Beijing
Officially, the Cyberspace Administration of China says the purpose of internet regulation is to maintain cybersecurity and support “building a moderately prosperous society in all respects,” while deepening reform, governing according to law, and “strengthening Party discipline.”
That language is classic bureaucratic prose, and it is easy for outside observers to interpret it in the most sinister way possible. But in practical terms, Chinese authorities argue that the system is meant to protect national security, social stability, and domestic technological sovereignty.
This also explains an important historical point: China did not formally ban Meta or Google. Those companies withdrew because they were unwilling to fully comply with Chinese regulations, including requirements related to censorship and local data storage. Mark Zuckerberg himself said, “We don’t offer our consumer services there. It’s not that we got kicked out.” Meanwhile, companies such as Apple and Microsoft continue operating in China under Chinese rules.
Access to the wider internet is not impossible
Another widespread assumption is that Chinese citizens are completely sealed off from the outside world. In reality, many people in China know perfectly well what Facebook, YouTube, X, or Instagram are, and some access them through VPNs. China also developed its own large-scale digital ecosystem—WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Bilibili, Alibaba, Baidu—which performs many of the same functions as Western platforms.
As skier Eileen Gu once remarked when asked how she used Instagram in China: “Anyone can download a VPN. It’s literally free on the App Store.”
Ironically, it is the European Union—critical of supposed “authoritarian China”—that, according to TechRadar, is “preparing the ground for wider data retention, with VPN providers among the targets.”
A 2018 Stanford study, The Impact of Media Censorship: Evidence from a Field Experiment in China, gave 1,800 Chinese university students tools to bypass censorship for 18 months. Researchers found that, without strong encouragement, many participants showed limited interest in regularly using the uncensored internet and did not view the additional information as especially valuable to their daily lives.
That does not prove that censorship is harmless, but it does challenge the assumption that Chinese citizens are universally desperate for a Western-style internet.
The Great Firewall: National Security, Foreign Threats, and Responsive Feedback Governance
From Beijing’s perspective, the “Great Firewall” is not merely about censorship; it is also viewed through the lenses of national security, information control, and digital sovereignty. Chinese authorities openly express concern regarding foreign influence operations, online mobilization, and espionage, as well as attempts by external powers to sway domestic politics via social media and information campaigns. Against this backdrop, the recruitment of spies and agitators—as well as attempts to exert influence on social media, attributed to foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA—serve as further justification for maintaining sufficient controls over the information landscape.
Critics may view this as paranoia; proponents see it as a lesson drawn from events ranging from the Arab Spring and the Maidan uprising—which led to the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected government—to the unrest in Hong Kong and the so-called “color revolutions” in other parts of the world; events in which Western governments and NGOs have often played a significant role. Either way, this perspective helps explain why China has developed a controlled domestic internet rather than fully integrating its digital space into US-dominated platforms.
The reality is far more complex than a simplistic Orwellian analogy suggests. While China restricts certain forms of political expression and maintains controls over parts of the internet, it simultaneously provides extensive channels for public complaints, policy feedback, and the resolution of local grievances. Western media, generally deeply biased against China, naturally refuse to call this democracy — even though it demonstrates a distinctive responsiveness that is largely absent from what passes for “democracy” in the West, a system that in practice functions more as an oligarchy.
The relationship between censorship and public opinion in China cannot be reduced to a simple “either-or” scenario—total silence versus unrestricted freedom. Instead, it is a managed system that combines information control with mechanisms for monitoring social discontent and responding to the population’s needs. Since understanding these needs is crucial to the Chinese meritocracy, suppressing criticism would run counter to that objective.
Despite these restrictions, access to the unrestricted internet remains possible. A VPN in China is akin to a library card for the rest of the internet—yet most people simply prefer the books they already have at home.
Firewall-Free Macau vs. Europe’s Authoritarian Silencing
While Hong Kong maintains relatively open access to major international websites, Macau—which is also a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China—similarly lacks an equivalent to mainland China’s Great Firewall, allowing unrestricted internet access for residents and visitors alike.
In the European Union, however, the broadcasting, distribution, and online dissemination of content from media outlets—such as RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik—have been banned since 2022. While EU representatives argue that the measure is necessary to counter what they view as disinformation, proponents of freedom of speech object that it restricts access to alternative viewpoints and stifles independent analysis of the conflict. Consequently, the EU—as one of the principal parties to the war in Ukraine—effectively denies its citizens access to the Russian perspective on this proxy war.
Meanwhile, public criticism of Israeli policies—including the use of terms like “apartheid” or “genocide”—frequently faces restrictions and legal repercussions across Europe. Consequently, individuals have encountered professional dismissals, imprisonment, deportation, and severe financial distress. In the most extreme instances, citizens have faced existential crises after being sanctioned or blocked from accessing their bank accounts to purchase basic necessities like groceries. This trend is particularly pronounced in Germany, but it also occurs in the UK, France, and other nations, where such measures are routinely justified under the guise of hate speech, public order, or anti-semitism laws. Conversely, state and platform responses to hate speech targeting Palestinians and Muslims on social media remain largely negligible.
Conclusion
In summary, while China’s internet controls undeniably restrict certain forms of political expression, the Orwellian “1984” analogy oversimplifies and distorts a far more sophisticated system. The Great Firewall serves legitimate national security, digital sovereignty, and social stability goals in response to genuine concerns over foreign influence operations.
At the same time, China maintains robust feedback mechanisms — including the 12345 hotline, petitions, surveys, and social media monitoring — that allow authorities to detect grievances, respond to public pressure, and adjust policies accordingly. This creates a distinctive balance: information control paired with responsive governance.
Far from imposing total silence, the system enables Chinese citizens to voice concerns that frequently produce tangible outcomes, particularly at the local level. Recognizing this duality — rather than defaulting to simplistic dystopian clichés — offers a clearer and more accurate understanding of how China’s governance actually functions. In practice, it delivers greater responsiveness to the everyday needs of ordinary citizens than Western-style democracies, where governments are often more beholden to wealthy elites than to voters, and frequently lack both the institutional tools and the political will to address public concerns effectively.