Absolutely , but I was really talking about attitudes towards Russia before all of this happened. Russian society was seen as more similar to Western than Chinese. People had more freedoms. Yet Russia has always had more brutality. There is more violent crime in Russia and the regime deals with dissent in a more violent way.

China despite its high level of inequality has surprising low levels of violent crime. The Chines regime prefers to do its violence and oppression in ways which are hidden and out of sight.

In China there is however lots of non-violent crime such a swindle, trickery, fraud, fake products etc.