Your emotional reaction is a choice. You can choose to both not be afraid and still walk through fire, so to speak. Proactively exercising your right to free speech will set you on the path towards the ends you desire.
Fear is a healthy emotion, properly tempered. And it's an entirely rational response to a threat to my freedom and way of life. China is no less than that.
Yes, and, expressing emotions helps us move beyond them. Holding onto them indefinitely is not necessary for them to be part of our experience.
Yes and sometimes in expressing those emotions we realize that they're underlayed by a logical basis that our instinct was informing us about, as when we fear the rise of a genocidal communist dictatorship as a global power monger.