I think people have asked something like this before. There really is nothing we can do, and I don't think any of us believe it is ok. Your only options are to stay and deal with it, or leave. Protesting will get you nothing but trouble. As for me, I'm not paying any taxes, so I'm not funding anything. Us expats being paid 5,000 or less a month don't pay tax, and there are quite a few of us.

This is why I stopped working for State media. You tell yourself it's baby steps and you're actually helping to show what needs to be done to have a decent media, but, in reality, no one cares, no ones listens to you. 

There's many people fooling themselves into thinking that their state media is part of some noble shift forward, but it's not. And those who cling to that belief for too long are usually total idiots. 

As bad as people might think the government here is...it is still better than it ever has been.

I don't work here or pay taxes...my company makes stuff in China employing local people.  It may seem like crappy work but for them it's the best thing they have ever had...mostly migrant workers.

Do the profits of the factories get taxed...yes...so what.  For all the horrible things we read about in Western media there are 100 times more good things the government does and it is getting better every year.

You are not working and paying taxes in Syria or Iran...big difference IMO.

Also let me clear...there are many many things I hate about the government here...but dwelling on them will not make it better or improve any lives.

Apparently, I'm not paying tax.... (the accounts department is doing a tax scam - because we don't have a Chinese ID, they don't bother sending the tax through to the tax dept, and they keep it all themselves).

Which, in its own way, directly relates to the question... by continuing on the corruption that this country has.

What to do about it? There isn't a lot that's likely to happen, but I do think our presence here has some effect. It might not be noticible, but it is there. Face is so absolutely important here, and it takes a fair bit to keep that face. If a foreigner goes into (say) Xinjiang, and talks to the locals and takes pics -  it has an effect.

As Thedude wrote - yeah, it is better, and it is getting better....

No, I don't feel so because taxes don't actually finance anything. Most nations can and do print their own money and run on budgetary deficits, and the PRC is no different. In such a system taxation is simply how money is removed from circulation, much like capping or cutting interest rates removes money from circulation by preventing new money from being created. Spending by contrast is how money is put into circulation, which is how a tax cut is actually a spending increase. In short revenue and spending on government programs are related in terms of money supply only. Specific programs are not really financed by the two to four hundred RMB that gets taken out of my monthly paychecks for taxes, rather that money is just removed from the money supply. 

Yian, if you think it's not ok, does that mean you are going home? 

I wont be paying taxes, because I will only be probably staying six months. So for me, it's easy... ish. Like an extended visit. 

As a foreigner in China, your taxes are going to the government. But maybe your presence, if you do it right, can be... inspirational to the common folk. Not by preaching the ways of the west, but... (it's late and my thinking is clouded by the sleepies) in the way you present yourself with the western mannerisms and sensibilities and values. Not to change the Chinese, they deserve their culture, but... you know. If you could get just one chinese person to stop spitting or pissing in the street, wouldnt China be 1.6 billionth of a percent better?

It's a start. 

Sorry, but I don't pay taxes in China, so, in essence, I don't feel hypocritical about anything the government does or doesn't do.

How would paying taxes in china be more immoral than paying them in western countries that are in Iraq and Afghanistan? Maybe all tax is immoral:)

I Think we need to be able to differentiate between the people and the politicians. People everywhere fall into roughly two groups, those we think are ok and those we think are not. Politicians however always fall into  only one group which has one objective whichever country they are part of, and that is to retain as much power and money as they can, either legally or illegally. If I stayed in the country of my birth, England, I would be paying taxes to support illegal wars, corruption in order to gain arms deals, overseas aid to countries who have very questionable records on things like human rights including China and umpteen other things I do not even know about but are probably happening anyway. The point being is that even if I stayed there I am still supporting those questionable things suggested in the question. Politicians live in their own world irrespective of their own people, the people in whichever country are just going to get screwed anyway. So am I more of a hypocrite for living in a country where these things are known to happen, but do not pay any taxes here; or live in a country where I do pay taxes but pretends that these things do not happen. I think, Yian,before you criticise China too much you should hold the mirror up to the things that happen in our home countries. Any way if you object to the way China operates as much as your question would suggest why did you come here in the first place and more importantly why do you stay here?