You don't need to qualify that with "once they get home". Chinese who talk or write about the wrong things will be hunted down wherever they are in the world. China managed to get the UAE to detain a US permanent resident for almost two months when he was traveling from Istanbul to New York with a connection in Dubai.

https://apnews.com/article/europe-china-dubai-middle-east-he...

Yeah, I think very few are under any logical or intellectual delusion, but constant reinforcement and signaling affects everyone subconsciously.