It's not a legitimate consideration though.

You're right; the risk of abduction is vanishingly small, even if many people are terrified of the power of the Chinese government. I'll replace "legitimate" with "common" in my comment.

Common consideration would be more accurate, I agree. That said, I think it's a very silly consideration regardless of how frequently it's considered.

A work colleague checked their phone when a protest happened a block away and was then interrogated on the weekend for 10 hours by state police.

This is average schmuk stuff in China.

This is a singular anecdotal experience. There are 1.4 billion people in China, most never experiencing anything like that in their lifetime.

People aren't going to KubeCon China because of being harassed by minders. This is not an isolated case. It is pervasive and it is chilling.

It's not pervasive. Incredible claims require evidence, which you have none. If anecdotal evidence is enough, dozens of people I know go to China with zero issues regularly. Many people we know live there with zero issues. There's 1.4 billion people, logistically what got are saying is not feasible for a country that size. It's nonsense.

Western travelers would fit more within the 10% or so of China with total wealth in the $100-$1,000k range.

These are the people with the means to challenge the power structure, and they are watched more closely.

If someone in this wealth range holds up a blank piece of paper, they may end up in jail.

Holding up a blank piece of paper is a completely different scenario and topic! We are talking about normal, everyday travel for business and recreation. If you go there and do something taboo, something that's clearly intended to cause trouble, then what do you expect?

With any foreign country you should understand their cultural norms and laws. Your own ignorance is a valid consideration for travel, not being arrested as a political prisoner. You won't get in any trouble as a tourist or business person 99% of the time.

> You won't get in any trouble as a tourist or business person 99% of the time.

So there is 1% chance; and why would I take even 1% chance of getting into troubled country?

The point is that it is easy to accidentally do something taboo for a random person…

Yeah, no. I gave you two specific, recent examples of Canadians who were in China and went through this due to Whanzhou Meng being considered for extradition to the USA while in Canada. And while she was living in her mansion they were in jail. As a Canadian the other frustration is this was really a US-China spat.