I rather like the writings of Shirley Ze Yu. An ex anchor on China's CCTV, now in academe in the west. A thinker and writer of power and insight. She threads a fine needle here in this piece, such that both critics and fans of China's system can find solace.
For me, it's the observation that it doesn't matter if one million people say the same thing. Or one billion. If it's the same message, then it's boring.
I remember years ago someone made a point that has stuck in my mind: America has a one-word ideal, Freedom. China has no one-word ideal. Xi Jinping's "China Dream" doesn't cut it. What's the one word that China would draw us with? Repression?
Would you rather a China-dominant world or a US-dominant world? For me it's the US, every time. And I live in a part of China, aka Hong Kong. I wrote about what China was about, under the leadership of Xi Jinping,p in Document 9. It's grim. Document 9 should be more widely known. A summary:
It [Document 9] identifies seven threats in a “fierce” struggle, and the first threat on the list is “Avocating Western Constitutional democracy. Seeking to negate the current leadership and the government system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The document describes the offensive Western ideals as “the separation of three powers, a multiparty system, a system of universal suffrage, independent judiciary, a military belonging to the nation, etc.”... [some] threaten the system by "holding up the banner of 'defending the constitution' and 'governing the country in accordance with the law' to attack the party leadership..."
