I’m sure you’re right. I only started it and got bored. Like you I did note the criticism of past Chinese governments so I guess your hypothesis on that is right too.
ETA
I have discussed politics and history with Chinese students in contexts where I wouldn’t always expect complete openness and honesty. Like the official government spy could be there and the unnoficial ones too. Anyway the line on Mao seems to be “he was a great man, but he made mistakes, people then didn’t know as much as we do now”.
And to be fair on Mao if you go run the timeline on gapminder
You can see Mao was “flawed” but the English and Japanese… Well Victoria and Hirohito were nothing better than sadistic, thieving, raping, murderous, genocidal thugs.
