As I've expounded on in other posts, there are two ways of maintaining order: liberty, justice, and truth or tyranny, injustice, and lies. If you remove one part, the house of cards collapses. What we're seeing in China are two conflicting agendas: economic growth and maintaining power. What is it that makes a Western style country able to perform so well? It's the free exchange of ideas. That's why you're seeing restrictions relaxed on the media. With access to new media that is not state owned, the CPC will no longer be able to maintain the illusion that the system's just fine.
I value Western freedoms, but I don't think they are perfect and I don't believe that we are as informed as we are indoctrinated to believe we are. More often than not, people are too busy chanting about how free we are to see that we are being misled or that the media is only giving us half the story.
Another key point is that there are so many people working to establish the rule of law in China. Once that happens, the government will no longer be able to dictate by fiat.
I don't understand this point. Who is working to established the rule of law, exactly? Right now only the CCP does that.
Finally, as the younger generation grows up with access to the internet, they will be exposed to western ideas. The Great Firewall can reduce this exposure, but the subtleties will always slip through and for those that are interested there will always be a way around it.
The firewall is mostly useless, but that's not the problem. First, the school system gets to Chinese children before the internet ever does. They are taught from day one to salut the Communist Party, and they are only given details about the good things the Communists do.
Second, the vast majority of Chinese who have access to the internet know no other language but Chinese, and so the vast array of content which might open their eyes is inaccessible. The only medium that can reach them is one that MUST be in Chinese, and this is what the government looks out for. As soon as something is spotted, it is shut down. There are plenty of English sites that are pro-democracy for China, but barely anyone can read them, so what's the point?
China's historically been a poor nation. How will driving them back into poverty change anything? I think that would be counter-productive and would drive them to become more insular.
China has not been historically poor. Until the 1600's it was the richest and most advanced nation on earth, even ahead of Europe with its innovations. And it wasn't until the past 100 years that China experienced widespread poverty and collapse, due to the Western and Japanese invasions, and then letter the domestic mismanagement of the early CCP.
You also have to realize that the lack of democracy is allowing development to proceed at an unprecedented pace. There is no bureaucracy, no whining, no people's rights... if they want to bulldoze a neighbourhood and build a highway, they do it. No questions asked. If they want to build 2,000 buildings in one year, the permits just appear. There are so many people in the country that democratic bureaucracy would slow growth right now, and I do believe that once China is more developed its democratic movements will have a better chance.
Right now most people in China accept the CCP for the simple fact that they are providing what is needed. The KMT never did that, although in fairness there were the Japanese, the CCP running amock, and WWII which made smooth government difficult. The foreign powers never did that for China when they invaded. The CCP is the first government since the fall of the Qing to actually get stuff done and provide prosperity.
Like I said... if the prosperity begins to wane or the environment gets too timultuous, people will begin to turn coat.