A Chinese guy being a hero and telling everyone to leave while he stayed behind to die? Really?

There's a slight problem with your assessment of this... in many parts of the world, we don't see an asian actor and immediately think "Oh, CCP sponsored shill". It's only when some overt bit of propaganda shows up.

I think it's fine to have Chinese actors doing such things (self-sacrifice). I mean - isn't it rather racist to think that a Chinese person wouldn't do that??

Personally, I'm far more pissed about governments pandering to the CCP and its BS.

I didnt watch the movie and absolutely wont until it comes in free on my chinese movie service i have here.  That movie was apparently so bad that it certainly doesn't deserve my  money.  Likewise hollywood has been annoying for years now.  Trying to maintain the status quo and feed us with awful movies ( another ten superhero movies, anyone?) and the coming of China has become something they have come to depend on.  No worries, a crappy movie will still sell over here, they all say.  Manufacturing all came here much earlier for the same reason ( lower standards across the board) and hollywood has finally caught on, now that salaries are high enough to support some levels of consumption. They will keep making terrible movies just because they know they can make money over here.  Lets not even talk about the hypocrisy involved.  Pandering to China by allowing a Chinese guy to be a sacrificial lamb is like throwing them a bone, denying a Chinese character of any real main role or meaningful content.  The actor is just there to die, albeit nobley. 

They will keep doing it to cater for the Chinese market. Later they will alienate the western market. They will then eventually find a way to cater to both providing that another film producing country doesn't take the market from them.

Independence Day 2 rated very poorly at like 4.7

I didn't even bother to see it. Hollywood will stop kissing ass when they lose money... that's all they care about. China is a huge market... the biggest in the world currently... just have to deal with it unless you are the one paying their bills. 

Let me put it this way... we all know the 'American Dream" and how fake that is - and yet people buy it up from Hollywood.

We all know that spy movies don't go the same way in reality - and yet we lap it up.

We know that movies like Independence Day - where the yanks come flying in to save everyone at the last minute - are utter crap... and yet they still keep making them because that's what yanks want to see.

So - selling out to the Chinese market is just the same thing - to a different audience. To the rest of the non-American market, it's the same damn pile of crap, but with a different actor. So, it's rather ironic that one group that's been pandered to for decades now winges and whines because another group is now being pandered to.