It is extremely hard to get an honest opinion about what anybody feels, but it is important to know the context. China is an extremely large place with a history of attempts at cohesion which is 98% successful but only in the last several decades.

150 years ago there was a stalemate with a guy claiming to be Jesus' brother before the winners decided to absolve the state of religion. In that context its clear how order is kept over there.

There are 8 cities in the region surrounding Hong Kong with distinct cultural nuances and history which are now also more economically relevant to China and arguable the world stage. Shenzhen, the one bordering Hong Kong, is an marvel on its own, and it would make sense if our news had more represenation about things happening there alone, than Hong Kong, purely from academic and industrial advances. The standard of living in those areas does contrast to Hong Kong now: HK has the extreme market driven inequalities as London, Vancouver, San Francisco, you name it - while the spacious but dense neighboring zones offer modern spacious but practical accomodations and safety nets as a byproduct of the marxist ideologies with the newly added twist of valuing private ownership and increasing forms of capital formation.

Its not as simple as trying to school every Chinese person you see on how oppressed they are. It will always, 100% of the time, be met with vitriol. Its just not that simple.

In classic socialist fashion it does remain to be seen what happens when the economy downturns. The outcome is predictable. But for now, the party has won after a long history to get where it is, it maintains cohesion and stability and rising living standards for the world's largest population, while others in the world practicing a market based ideology struggle with their also predictable problems.

Its not relevant to the average person that the communist party acts in its own interest. The corruption is aggravating but there is nothing to act on. Its not relevant on a day to day basis that disgusting party members all the way up north in beijing are having dissident's body parts harvested so the party member stays healthy. This has nothing to do with the cohesion of the country, and there is zero context to imagine a rule of law ideal that applies to prevent this. Its not relevant that all the way on the other side of the Gobi fuckin desert, there are concentration camps. There are also no threats of islamic extremism. Yet again, something the loudest countries also aren't able to brag about.

Its important to understand how irrelevant Hong Kong residents are to Chinese people internally. Its important to understand how irrelevant the authoritatian central planning of Beijing is to Chinese people on a daily basis. Then, you can begin to understand how Chinese respond to the things we focus on. We focus on everything dark about China, as if everything about China is dark. They simply don't.

The party isn't playing a game of civil rights. They are playing the millenium old game of "lets run a country and make sure nobody attacks us". Mission accomplished, nobody is attacking China or even wants to, not even non-state religious extremists. The people accept that role of government, accept that centralized power comes with disproportionate privileges even its aggravating, and accept that they're being provided for.

They watch their competitors continue to play imperialist and watch them undermine their own budgetary contraints and their own national security. Whereas China loosens marxist restrictions on their entrepreneurs to develop in burdgeoning and fragmented markets that the west is ignoring, and doesn't undermine its national security in the process. Its an approach, its a perspective. I think we should try to incorporate that context into why they do what they do.