I did some subjects on Chinese history and politics (taught in English) in China at a Chinese university. Yes, they were frank in their criticism about the excesses of the great people’s cultural revolution and the failures of the GLF. Shame, regret, is a good way of describing it, and is a strong motivator to prevent it happening again. What’s more important, as others in this thread have highlighted, is that we discussed and analysed these failures.

When talking to everyday Chinese people about those times, they expressed similar sentiments to what Blinky_katt said. Though probably at a more surface level i.e. “We have deep respect for Chairman Mao, however xx yy zz”. This is what they’re willing to discuss with a Westerner, so it’s not as if they’re coy in raising these topics when in known company.

I live in Australia and our execrable domestic policies around the same time, such as those of the Stolen Generation, are addressed very briefly but never analysed. If anything they’re whitewashed as ‘we meant well but we’re smarter now, let’s move on’. There’s nothing approaching a national level of introspection.