But then a lot of Chinese folks who cross over to Western social media find the anti-CCP sentiment to overreach (no doubt bc of the geopolitical considerations involved), and switch over to a defensive posture as a result.
Unfortunately when dissent is explicitly illegal, opinion polls are scientifically invalid. That's the CCP's choice, not external propaganda.
When in reality Chinese people are as diverse a people as any other, they are just as influenced by Western pop-culture as any other people.
Case in point: Asian hip hop, yes even Chinese hip-hop has seen quite a rise in popularity.
They copy a ton of tropes out of the US, like most non-US hip-hop has been doing for decades, but they also inject their own Chinese identity as part of the narrative of the songs [0].
Of course, that's a rather acquired taste, but I would easily count as "counter-culture", after all that's also exactly what it started out as in the US.
There's no way support for the government is completely genuine in such an environment.
Also, you may have been to China, but have you ever taken the time while there to attempt to understand why there might be some support for the government? This is a country where even among the fairly young, most experienced poverty as children, where their parents and their grandparents have experienced hunger, sometimes severe famine, being invaded and conquered and brutalized by the Japanese, then civil war, and the civil strife and turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Chinese families are close knit, most grow up living with their grandparents - these generational experiences are ingrained into the fabric of society. There's genuine and heartfelt appreciation for the recent policies and stability that has finally let a people raise themselves out from that poverty. (China in the 50's, 60's, and 70's was much poorer than Sub-Saharan Africa - per capita GDP was something from 1/2-1/3 of even places like the Congo and Zimbabwe). There is pride too, overwhelming pride in the grit and determination and hard work that has been poured into all that development and progress. Obviously, that's not to say that there isn't plenty of criticism and opposition and people making fun of aspects of the government and government policies, but the general support is not fake or coerced. I imagine it's not that different from the way a certain generation of Americans from a particular economic class saw FDR and his whole New Deal administration.
Just keep in mind that sometimes, depending on their background story and life experiences, people can see the same things in a very different light. They also have different utility curves - some might value a tootsie roll over a twix bar, some might value liberty over their own life, or some might just value stability and the opportunity to live their lives and raise their children over anything else in the world.
Name a place in any USA city where you will be detained and your equipment confiscated for taking pictures from a public thoroughfare.
Bad Aibling, with its ECHELON installation, used to be quite infamous for that because it was located in a pretty popular hiking region.
I doubt the US military is that much more lenient domestically about having their installations photographed/filmed, no military really is, and a lot of law enforcement/IP rights are neither [0].
I take issue with that description of China because any government that is in power usually is so because large numbers of its citizens supporting it.
That's something absolutely normal, as it doesn't work any other way. But with China, it's somehow made out to be something bad when the Chinese are supportive of their country and government.
Similarly: Facebook ain't the only platform for discussion and organizing, the notion that China doesn't have any such platforms, and thus no counterculture like that, is just silly.