I'll say it's not too hard, and having the phone app Wechat makes life very easy. Add money to Wechat, then you can book hotels and trains on the app (and buy literally anything with it). You may need to collect real life train tickets however, as you have a foreign passport. Collect these tickets at the train station, there's english everywhere as well so you can get around. The translations are a bit off sometimes, so it may take some guesswork. Feel free to ask the officials standing around the place, they usually are happy to help.

If you can't get Wechat, or can't add money to it, you can buy tickets online or in person at the train stations. I'll say that Wechat is useful if you're the more spontaneous, YOLO type of traveller. Otherwise, you can plan it out without Wechat.

Things get expensive if you're getting first class train tickets lol, then again it costed around 2000 chinese yen to get from Guangzhou to Xian (1308 km flight distance). Not too bad? Standard tickets are not bad at all, and there are so many trains, all the time. Some trains are sleeper types (which I adore), which also have economy and first class beds.

I've seen plenty of foreign backpackers on the trains in China, even in the most obscure small cities. So yeah, definitely not difficult for foreign people (inc. five eyes) to travel in China. People might look at you a bit more than you are comfortable with in the smaller towns, simply because they don't see many foreigners. Hope you don't get easily weirded out! Otherwise, stick to the mainstream and big cities.

Hotels aren't too expensive, and hostels are a thing there. Since you have kids I recommend hotels instead, and go with the chain ones (like 七天 or 如家). The prices vary with location in the city ofc, so the more "hot" ones are relatively expensive. I'll say a standard price for a twin bed room is 250 yen? Could be cheaper, could be easily more.

For good food, defintely zip around in the Guangdong province (and the aforementioned Guangzhou). If you like spicy food, go to Sichuan (beware of earthquakes though). If you like sweet foods, go to Hangzhou and Shanghai. And for weird and sour flavours, go to Guizhou.

There's so much to see in China, I'm not sure what to recommend haha. If you like mountains, there are plenty of beautiful ones in China, and they are usually very accessible to all people. E.g. Zhangjiajie or Huangshan.

I really wanted to go to Xinjiang via Gansu this year, I've seen some nice pics/vids of really beautiful train journeys along those areas. But then Covid happened, so I'm stuck at home.

Hope that helps? Feel free to ask more

That's a lot of questions, and I am not an expert on all things politics, but here are some of my attempts: Once again, I don't speak for all Chinese people.

1. I'll say this video answers a lot of your worries about "debt traps" etc. Keep in mind that China regularly waives debts from poorer countries as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBgbYQ5QAM0

Yanis Varoufakis is straight up not a fan of China either, so you don't have to worry about bias here. Another thing to keep in mind is that these countries can think for themselves. If they believe that the contract is a shitty one, they can decide not to sign it. Again, there are other places to borrow money. These other places may be less than ideal however, and I'm sure these countries have thought for themselves and chose China.

2. South China seas. I'll be honest, I have no idea what to think about it. Maybe have a look at r/sino for some far more educated thoughts. Here's one of their links, judge for yourself:

https://isdp.eu/publication/understanding-chinas-position-south-china-sea-disputes/#_ftn2

3. Think of the social credit as your normal credit. Again, I'm going to post some links etc for you to judge yourself:

https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/futher-regulating-social-credit/

Or if you like twitter threads: https://nitter.net/chinalawtransl8/status/1288196385637052418

And here is some context for why this is used instead of the credit system in the west:

"Many of you have probably heard about the “Social Credit” system being developed in China particularly from western media. However, “Social Credit” is a product of bad translation between Mandarin an English as “Social Credit” in English sounds like a credit score on your social media or social interactions, however, this is not the case. The Mandarin meaning of the phrase is more closely related to Socialism. A “Socialism Credit” but that doesn’t make much sense in English. It is a Credit Worthiness rating system very similar to that of the ones in the West. Think “Credit rating with Socialist Characteristics”. Here is one list of relevant documents on the planning of the social credit system. A reader of this will note that the focus is not on controlling dissent or influencing your social media like western articles have suggested, but rather towards building a regulatory framework around financial activities and legal compliance.

So, you may be wondering, if it's just a Financial Credit Worthiness Rating system, why not just use one identical to the rest of the world. Well that is because only 30+ years ago China was a poor country with no financial industry or credit systems. As China grew Chinese culture ingrained in the people to save, save, save and never live past your means, like take on debt. In 2016 China had a Household Savings Rate of 36.1%. Which is one of the highest in the world.

For comparison, here are some other 2016 world economies Household Savings Rate:

South Korea: 7.2% Japan: 2.4% United States: 4.9% Australia: 8.9% Germany: 9.6% Switzerland: 17.8%

Because of this extraordinarily high savings rate, and the advent of digital payment systems in 2004 with Alipay and then WeChat pay in 2011 Credit Cards while still used and commonly accepted are not commonly used and never caught on with the majority of the public in China. By 2012, only 25% of Chinese consumers had a credit card. By 2015 50% of consumer payment transactions were being done from mobile payment platforms. Because of this, most Chinese consumers don’t have a credit history to build a traditional credit score on. However, I would like to point out that in recent years there has been a rapid increase in credit card/consumer debt usage. So the government’s idea to solve the gap in determining people’s creditworthiness was to create a creditworthiness rating that takes in factors such as other governmental public data like rent payment, delayed payment to common reserve fund, defrauding/cheating the healthcare fund, common reserve fund, wages, embezzlement charges as well as on top of your financial credit history. In around 2016/2017 the Chinese government gave a number of private corporations licenses to create their own Social Credit scoring systems with whatever available data they had to test out the idea. "

Source and more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/wiki/faq/social-credit-system

4. Xinjiang has oil and rare earths. Lol need I say more.

Here's something interesting about the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang: "Throughout the 1990s, hundreds of Uyghurs were transported to Afghanistan by the CIA for training in guerrilla warfare by the mujahideen. When they returned to Xinjiang, they formed the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and came under Çatlı's expert direction. Graham Fuller, CIA superspy, offered this explanation for radicalizing the Chinese Muslims: The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them [Muslims] against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia. This policy of destabilization was devised by Bernard Lewis, an Oxford University specialist on Islamic studies, who called for the creation of an “Arc of Crisis” around the southern borders of the Soviet Union by empowering Muslim radicals to rebel against their Communist overlords."

Quote from Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia by Paul L. Williams. He's a Evangelical Christian type nutcase which hates islam so take this quote with a lot of salt.

Despite all the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, national news do not report on it very much. To do so would stir up tensions between the Han and the Uyghurs, when cooperation and unity is needed.

The BRI also goes through Xinjiang, and for trouble to start there of all places, especially after China announced BRI, is doubly suspicious.

You know anyone can travel to Xinjiang right? If they had some shady shit to hide, why let people travel there?

Okay, some context for Tibet. Tibet in the past really was not this happy go lucky, all about peace and meditation, Buddhist and holy place. That is an purposefully cultivated, orientalist view of Tibet. Back then, serfs were a thing. Those in the upper echelons of Tibetan society can do anything to those on the bottom, and this was usually violent abuse. See Michael Parenti's essay on Tibet, it's very comprehensive: http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

And some history of Tibet: https://nitter.net/i/status/1270468493016576000

Carl Zha is really good at long af threads about geopolitics, but some sentences can be difficult to parse.

5. Racism in China

Hmmm, "white monkey" jobs may exist, not sure how common it is though, especially nowadays. You do see them occasionally in ads, posing awkwardly haha. I'll say that it manifests from 崇洋媚外, where some Chinese people adore all things Western and foreign, and hate all things Chinese. It's a really shitty self-hating attitude, but you do see them in some people. This manifests in many ways, one of which may be using white people to promote products.

As for racism against black people, I would say that it may exist, but generally it isn't violent and systemic. It stems from ignorance, because they simply don't see many black people in China. What they do see may come from Western media (which they have access to, because VPNs). Using black people as slaves was not a thing in China, nor was colonising Africa in Chinese history. Thus, the things a select few Chinese people say or do may seem racist or at least insensitive in American eyes, comes from not knowing better. This sort of history is not exactly well known to all Americans/Westerners either, how many can explain why watermelon is a racist trope used against black people? It was because slave-owners wanted to depict black people as simple minded and easily kept happy, with foods such as watermelon.

As Mao says, it doesn't matter if it is a white or a black cat, as long as it catches rats.

6. Seizing the means of production

Mate I have no clue. All I know is that capitalism is really state controlled, and not the other way round. The rich really have to be careful now, and there are quite a few cases of billionaires being executed. Not sure if you saw this news, but essentially this billionaire's financial empire had been seized and redistributed: https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3093663/chinas-regulator-seizes-control-six-insurers-trust-firms-mass

7. Views on Europe and France I do not speak for all Chinese people, here's the vibe I personally get from my relatives etc in China

Europe and France is generally viewed as much better than America, but even then, not all dislike America. The positive views Chinese people have on these countries is reflected in the names Chinese people have for these countries. America, 美国, translates as "beautiful country". England, 英国, translates as "brave country". France, 法国, translates as "Just/lawful country". I'm not joking, these are really what these names translate to. I don't mean that they literally think France is lawful, but it is positively viewed. I'm pretty sure most Chinese people think of Paris when they think of France, and they think of a very romanticised life with wine and the Eiffel tower in the background. As well as expensive fashion lol. Those who actually go there may or may not get Paris syndrome, but I think that may be more of a Japanese phenomenon. Hmmm, not sure what else to say here. Those who are into geopolitics may want Europe to stand up against the US more? And they hope Germany sets the trend in doing so.

I hope that answers some of your questions?