I wasn’t fearful the last time I visited China, it was the Chinese guide that was fearful about us foreigners asking any banned questions in public.
I would imagine all the little store holders who spoke English would avoid answering any such a question.
My first visit to China was in 1980 and our group always had someone monitoring our movement, now it more then likely to be clandestine.
My brother in law who travelled independently wouldn’t agree with some of the comments made by Cosmo.
Even in Iran the store owners used to mention to me that their leader was an idiot! They actually used to ask us what I thought of their country and its leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
In both case the people were nice but here is a comparison of the fear factor of it citizens!
