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there's a number of explanations for this. for one thing, if you remember China as poor and backward, you're more likely to be impressed by its rise and achievements. alas also, stronger underlying rorientalism easily leads you to Party-backed stereotypes about 'Chinese values'
you're also far more likely to be going to China in a context where you are a 'valued' (in any number of ways) guest rather than living there, so your experience is limited to nice hotels and people praising you and saying how important good relations are
and because you're part of a demographic the PRC has traditionally targeted - especially the businessmen - they also know how to appeal to you. And if you're a US boomer liberal, you probably have a half-baked and inaccurate version of the 'Cold War' in your head anyway
you may also, like certain ex-national leaders, just be a greedy fuck who values your and your family's business connections to a fundamentally corrupt elite, but this is a relatively small number of people
also these guys tend to be very, very easily impressed by Chinese women (esp. young ones) talking to them -especially because professional Chinese women learn a set of skills pretty early on to flatter older powerful men.
but most of all I think this comes down to the worst class of China pundits *always* being the guys who go there for two weeks a year, who demographically are most likely to be in this class
if you don't go to China at all you can accept that you know nothing about it. if you've lived and *especially* if you've worked in China you are more likely to be hostile to and have directly experienced CCP power (not everyone, of course.)
but if you go once a year you can be absolutely convinced that you know China, especially if you fall for the 'so-and-so *personally* told me they want reform' routine. foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/08/i-t…
Now there are lots of exceptions to this! Lots of smart older folk, and certainly there are younger people who become the most gullible propagandists and whataboutists despite being, I dunno, however old Gabriel Wildau is.
lots of people also hold weak versions of these views without it doing any harm. the truly toxic is when they are *also* the kind of person convinced of their own intelligence and virtue while actively spreading disinfo on China - like Jeffrey Sachs
(the people who hold the weak versions of this are often kind and generous and liberal people, in fact, who are sincerely impressed by the China of today being so different from the China of their 20s)
