There is a documented story about a Doctor who defected from North Korea. After crossing the border from North Korea into China, she noticed bowls of rice and food on the ground. At first, she didn't understand why the food was on the ground. Then she realized, "dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea."[1]

There are many shades of grey on the scale of terrible place to live to amazing place to live. This is not black and white. Today's China (with its many faults) is a much better place to live than North Korea, or the China from 1970. In fact, China's per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power) has risen 7x in the past 25 years![2] I think people in China are happy to have this huge level of economic improvement for now, and will deal with the civil freedoms later.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_Envy#Dogs_and_docto... [2]http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-per-capita-ppp