I agree: read books about China. Books like "Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962" by Frank Dikotter, and "The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression" by Courtois et. al.

These are books you are unlikely to be able to read in China, and not because reading history does not comport with some imagined "Chinese way" but rather because the truth is threatening to totalitarians.