The first point I'll make is that I appreciate the advice to not go into politics.
You may know from my CV that I spent a lot of time in Asia. I'm actually working on a project now on constraints on academic freedom among public law scholars in Asia. With my team of colleagues, we've interviewed 30 colleagues from across the region, and there are all kinds of constraints—hard and soft.
Our interest is in the soft constraints, but what is also really interesting is that public law scholars in Asia find ways of addressing those soft constraints—not always—but it requires a deep understanding of the society and the context in order to do so. If a Canadian colleague goes to Asia, it's going to take some time to understand how to work around those rules.