Not gonna lie, being in good faith, the Chinese government having a 90% approval rate looks sus, at least to a Westerner. The West looks at this and shouts “That means they are brainwashed!” which I don’t buy into. Yet that idea that all these anti-imperialist people are just brainwashed really, well, brainwashes a lot of people. How can this be countered?
In the case of China, all you have to do is talk to Chinese people and see they’re not different from anyone else. They have a wide range of opinions, but especially those who stay in China tend to see what the government is doing and are in favor of it.
As someone living in SK, I can touch on the the case of North Korea a bit more. Defectors often admit two things: One, most people know when they’re being lied to, and two, the approval rate is still high in NK. Those things combined don’t exactly paint a picture of being brainwashed.
Another interesting thing is unlike 30-40 years ago, North Koreans coming to SK remain liberal in their beliefs, a strong indicator that any new information largely aligns with what they knew back in the Juche state.
What about all the westerners who are fed anticommunist propaganda? They don’t believe they are being lied to. Not trying to say that the North Koreans are being fed lies, I’m trying to be in good faith.
This essay digs into your question a bit more. I think it’s hard to say how many people see through the anti-communist propaganda, but whether they do or not doesn’t matter so much. What does matter is where they perceive their material interests to be. When people at least perceive themselves to be petit bourgeoisie if not higher, they are inclined to go along with whatever allows them to maintain or improve that class position the best.