How fortunate to have the opportunity to live in a very different country and experience its culture. Of course China is portrayed in a less than favourable light in many western media. China is probably THE greatest threat to western, ie US, world domination.
Plus the Chinese way of life, politics, values, traditions, culture, religion, just about everything in terms of core belief systems, are vastly different to those of most westerners. One imagines most people, ie visitors, really do not understand what is going on below the surface. But that can be said of any country with its own history and mores which nonetheless welcomes foreigners to some extent or other Of course native English-speaking teachers are going to be valued there in China with English being a highly desirable asset in business and other areas of life.
As others have mentioned, it's a vast country with differing local traditions and varying standards of living. Shanghai might appear thoroughly modern on the surface. But who knows what the labour laws and wages are for sweatshop workers where our clothes are made? One reads occasional articles about the labour forces housed in dorms, far away from family, on call 24/7. Is this true? You decide.
Similarly, Chinese anti-western propaganda is probably hard at work but perhaps you don't read the Chinese papers or listen to the TV broadcasts.
With modernisation, no doubt, much appears superficially similar in larger cities. The Chinese have certainly kept abreast of and ahead of modern technology. Plus people speak very highly in personal anecdotes about Chinese hospitality.
The situation with the Uiguhrs is horrific. As is China's takeover of Tibet, its culture and oppression of its religion (down to attempting to appoint its own Lama). Ditto Taiwan - a successful country now in its own right. Constant insatiable expansionism seems to be the order of the day (yes, like Trump).
Chinese companies are also financially colonising parts of Africa through vast and aggressive investment in massive infrastructure and there are many stories of oppression, nasty racism and suchlike. Chinese workers were recently exposed videoing African children who were taught to sing self-derogatory ditties about themselves which they didn't understand. Nasty. These videos are posted on the Internet (now that it's been exposed,perhaps it has stopped).
These things - racism, colonialism, workers' oppression, lying propagandising - do go on everywhere to various degrees. And I guess that's all one can say ultimately - it's about degree and scale and control. British politicians are also corrupt but they don't suddenly disappear, scrubbed from photographic records.
I think China has an absolutely fascinating culture and history. Being there for an extended period must offer so many opportunities to explore. I'd personally be interested in seeing what remains of the older culture - theatre, architecture, opera, costume, painting, poetry.
Maybe read up about artist Ai Wei Wei while in the UK and see what happened to him and why. I think his story suggests that dissent is not viewed kindly. As with another famous Chinese poet who was imprisoned and maybe died there, I can't recall.
Such a vast place, so much history. Its recent political turbulence is not all of what China is. No foreigner can ever know the entire picture. But what a wonderful experience to live and work there.