“ a much more nuanced picture than "it's a dictatorship with no free press and human rights"“

You should assume this is the case about everything that you have only read about without having long time personal experience. What we hear in the media about other countries or times in history is often basically a caricature of a reality that is way more complex and subtle than we usually are told. This is certainly true for China but also true for things like the Nazis or living under communism.

Reality is way more complex than we have time to learn.