It's ok to say "China was going the right direction between years X and Y" without being an "apologist".

* "China steals everything" (which essentially labels Chinese people as thieves).

* "Chinese scientists created CoVID-19 and then lied about it" (alleging that Chinese scientists have no integrity).

* "China only copies" (implying that Chinese people aren't creative).

* "Chinese numbers are all fake" (implying that millions of Chinese people are in on some conspiracy to fake everything).

In other words, in my experience, many people who say they just hate the CCP actually hold a huge number of negative stereotypes about Chinese people, and have a very conspiratorial view of the country.

One fact that everyone here should take into consideration is that the Communist Party has a very broad base of support in China, and is fairly popular. Most people actually approve of the central government, not in everything, but in general. If the Communist Party were as comically evil as people in the West tend to think, it wouldn't have this level of support, and it would lose power pretty quickly.

And one can't explain its popularity by claiming that Chinese people don't know what's going on - they tend to be far better informed about happenings in China than 99% of commenters in your average English-language internet forum. If you can't imagine why people in China would support the government, just consider the fundamental transformation that hundreds of millions of people have gone through in the last few decades. People who did not even have running hot water in their homes or reliable electricity are now wealthy enough to fly to Paris for a week.

I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture of the Chinese government or the Party, but I'm just pointing out that things are significantly more nuanced than most people here think.