China Is Closing in on Itself: The absence of foreigners in the country is a symptom of China’s restrictive, security-driven view of the world. “The feelings and impressions I heard from people whom I had never known to be particularly political were grim with discouragement. For their safety, I must withhold their names, but they quickly offered up the impression that their country had recently been closing in on itself, and the resulting sensation, one said, was like suffocation. One of them told me that I had lived in China during its heyday, a feeling I immediately understood but had never formulated myself.”
Related: Leaving China: Why expatriates like me abandoned the futures we planned in China.
h/t Glenn