I really do hope that China will keep out of Steemit's business.
Ack, who am I kidding - from the information I've gathered, I just hope they let it "slide" and don't arrest their citizen for simple critiques on their shady practices. But, I can only hope.
Your fear is justified, so I will - by no means - downplay it.
I can only hope, that things will turn out better than we assume they will.
You don't really even need to criticize. They love to take credit, so if you do something small that's good for the country, they'll have it reported positively in state run media all over. But if it starts gaining footing of its own and spreading too far too fast, they'll stamp it out because they can no longer control it their way.
This is what I mean when I say anything can become illegal at any given time, so what I write here doesn't have to be subversion, it could be any whimsical thing =/
But Steemit is small enough at the moment that I'll likely be fine (especially since I'm a foreigner, they tend to turn a blind eye to save on the paperwork)