I agree with you that >40 years old dislike China more as they never benefitted from the China's economic take-off that happened after 1990.
But I think for regular Chinese, the younger they are, the more liberal their world views are. This is because the education they received are more westernized each year (You might be surprised). Younger Chinese are generally more proficient in English. And to learn English people have to expose themselves to original English materials. I still remember when I was learning English I got access to things like TED, Open courseware such as Harvard's Justice, shows like the Newsroom, movies like the 12 Angry Men. China's human right records today is not good, but it was much much worse 30 years ago. Back then rural Chinese would kill new born female babies, have no issue buying and selling women (here's a movie about the topic[1]) and toddlers. People from different provinces fought and discriminated each other. And those are not government sponsored, just people being poor and illiterate. Now average Chinese are more literate and many more attended higher education (there's no higher education during the culture revolution)[2]. To this end I need to thank Nixon and people doing business with China. The average Chinese has a better life and can think more rationally thanks to economic and educational improvements.
On the other hand, internet censorship has become more strict after 2010. People do find ways to access VPN, it's just they don't discuss sensitive topics on Chinese internet.
1. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blind_mountain_2007
2. http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/cn (notice the Tertiary education section)