What do you mean? There were famines, a cultural revolution, and a great leap forward. You're not going to see these things now even if you visited unless the cultural revolution takes a great leap through a time machine.
The 'if you love it so much …' is among the worst rhetorical devices in history. It's meaningless and intended to rile up the other person without dealing with the substance. It's based on the faulty notion that knowledge can only come from experience. It's also based on a lack of class and material analysis.
If you went to China today at the invitation of Jack Ma, Xi, a random lower level party worker in a city or the countryside, or a random person in the city or the countryside, your perception of China will be radically different depending on who you go with and what you do. Even if Xi invited you, the trip will be coloured by whether he's dragging out CIA spies, ignoring Blinken's calls, strategizing over Taiwan, or doing a tour of speeches at universities and cutting the ribbon on new hospitals.
Visiting would give you a better picture of China, but it won't give you the full picture. That still requires studying China, which can be done anywhere. It'll be easier of one learns Chinese but there are sources in other languages. The Qiao Collective does done good stuff, such as this conference: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQFBO6UUfDCQoIxtdxX5dVRwl1kS9IhnV
Chinese people can be wrong and popularity doesn't make something right. Whether they are right or wrong, their class position makes a difference. The grandchildren of someone who lost their private property under Mao is going to have been brought up with stories about how scary it all was. The grandchildren of a peasant who the party lifted out of poverty will have been brought up with different stories.