That depends whether the instability brought by poking a corrupt regime is good or bad. On the one hand the human rights campaigners could improve democracy and help bring China into the modern world, whilst on the other hand promoting the faults of their corrupt regime could easily result in anarchy and martial law if there was ever an uprising. The major problem here is that an uprising would quickly cause the cost of production to go through the roof in China, forcing virtually every industry to pull out of the country and relocate elsewhere. This major export hit to the Chinese economy could collapse their entire system, and disregarding the international effects, it could easily land China in the situation of North Korea.

Honestly, with the fact that China could so easily result in a massive North Korea, how would that help the standard of living?

China isn't a simple situation and assigning childish ethics to the country will resolve nothing. The simple allowance of unions in China could easily result in another global recession. A college strike here in Ontario is threatening the provinces recovery as it may delay the graduation of all those getting retrained due to the financial crisis. Simply imagine what happened if unionization occurred throughout China and the ramifications for the countries trade.

China is going to require baby steps to bring it into a democratic and free world, anything faster could be an international economic disaster on the scale of the great depression.