When China’s Foreign Ministry welcomes more foreign tourists to visit the country, there is a certain irony behind the message. China spent years trying to explain itself to the world. Then it discovered that the most effective propaganda was to stop explaining and simply let people come and look. Visa-free travel achieved what official messaging often could not: it turned foreign visitors into accidental witnesses. Western media could describe China from thousands of kilometers away. Tourists could livestream the subways, streets, shops, trains, food, and ordinary life in real time. And reality turned out to be a much better public-relations department than bureaucracy ever was.