I agree with you that the true indicator is language. It'll not be easy for someone in the 20s to consume and digest articles that appear in LHZB (only approved foreign papers in China) and any news media from China due to the limited knowledge of mandarin in our younger generations.

But i hope you also understand that Singapore is able to move so rapidly and have such an effective govt is also because of the govt policy to make English the official language of administration. Imagine yourself being armed with education that you spent 10-15 years in school with, 90% in Mandarin. Bright future (for someone to spend so many years in school, many of them must have better conditions at home to see them through so many years of non earning years), right connections, probably a family biz, and suddenly over night, you are jobless, your language is no longer favored, letters and job description require you to be able to communicate and work in English. These people (my parents age and older) many of them become jobless, or are stuck in lower paying jobs or jobs that don't see any progression (so lower ses)... So they are also quite 可怜 la. Suddenly everything they read and everywhere they turn, they see Chinese becoming powerful and touted to be 'taking over the world' to be the next powerful nation. I think they somehow they become influenced and believed and buys into the propaganda that the Chinese media puts out.

There's another observation I've made over a group of more highly educated professionals who are not your lower ses Chinese speaking professionals/bizman spamming Chinese propaganda in WhatsApp and WeChat, and I suspect they also believed and buy into these Chinese propaganda. My only suspicion why this group who are seemingly unaffected by the language switch in the early days of independence are buying into Chinese propaganda is that they could be exposed or experienced to Chinese racism while studying or working with or in Caucasian companies or countries....