As a backpacker who flies to all over the world, it's a really bad idea to go to an actual authoritarian country like China

with your daily phone. It's one of those countries you really need to have a burner phone on you due to actual surveillance state reasons (and not "get a burner phone because of a high chance of it getting snatched by a gypsy/migrant").
Anything political on your phone will get searched even if it's material praising communism since they'll think you're a Westoid glowie trying to infiltrate and they've also been cracking down on actual Maoists in the country for a while (they don't like it when you glorify Mao more than Xi).
You really don't want to fuck around with this but Hasan got off easy since he's an e-celeb but if you're a nobody you can get screwed pretty badly, though probably not Otto Warmbier-tier at least.
Unironically the Boomers and Gen Xers have an easier time going to China since they're more likely to have very boring stuff on their phones that the Chink authorities can be like "heh, typical Westoid pigdog, carry on" but the moment they see anything too out of the norm they get suspicious quick.
this may be an aside, but is there a recent uptic in high profile streamers going to china? like what israel does, sort of a PR trip for the sympathetic notables.
That iShowSpeed stuff is 100% sponsored by the Chinks for sure. Alongside any travel vloggers shilling Chongqing as "omg its Cyberpunk 2077 IRL!".
China has been trying to boost its tourism sector more since traveling in general is becoming ever more accessible for everyone around the world (which is why we get Johnny Somalis every year wrecking havoc) but East Asia in general is especially becoming a hotspot as of the 2020s. Even Mongolia

is starting to become popular to the point they shilled iShowSpeed to go there and it's working, United Airlines just open up more flights to UBN as of this year.
China is especially trying compete with Japan

and Korea

due to how viral the tourism scene are over there (to the point locals are getting sick of it and there's an infestation of Johnny Somalis). That shit makes big bucks.
The Chinks however, aren't really doing a very good job at actually making China a more better destination to travel to than the other East Asian countries tho. For one, if you're American, you cannot go there visa-free (you have to get a visa) and most payment processors won't work there so you need to install Chink apps on your phone to pay for stuff there. Then the fact the authorities always give tourists a hard time (but then again you don't see any Johnny Somalis in China so its a double edged sword).
But there is
a China you can travel to where you won't have to worry about that stuff...
