There's actually a way to affect change in China, believe it or not. Unfortunately, it's not by the usual methods Americans believe to be effective (protests, marches, general upheaval, etc).
IMO, the best way to engage China is by using back-channels to express concerns while helping the Chinese government save face in public.
No, because there's no pent-up demand within America to overthrow democracy.
There's actually a way to affect change in China, believe it or not. Unfortunately, it's not by the usual methods Americans believe to be effective (protests, marches, general upheaval, etc).
I'm not sure what the best way to overthrow the Chinese dictatorship is, but looking at the models which worked in Russia or Argentina or Spain or Indonesia or... well, any of the other dozens of countries which have transitioned from dictatorship to democracy. Has any country ever made the transition without some kind of mass protest movement or an external invasion? (The latter option is off the table.)
I don't think the present system of back-channel polite tut-tutting is working very well.
Second, China doesn't have a dictatorship.
Getting rid of folks who claim sovereignty over a nation without the expressed and open consent of its people is, as I see it, the great moral challenge of the 21st century, much as ending slavery was the great moral challenge of the 19th.
And dare I ask what was the great moral challenge of the 20th?
The legitimate sovereign is the one the people permit to exist - if the Chinese government's rule was that of the iron fist against the vast majority who are itching for revolution, then sure, you might have a point.
But this is not how China is right now - there is no pent-up demand for revolution, and the people campaigning against the government are a vanishingly small minority at best.
In Civil War era, the Southern States had democratically voted to leave the Union. The North ignored the democratic result and went to war to bring them back, killing half of millions in the process.
The Southern States had voted democratically, with super majority, to keep blacks as slaves. By your logic, that's just a-ok.
Some democracy at work.
If 4% of the US people own 75% of the assets, then your 25% ruling 75% of the people is off by a few factors.
The government does become illegitimate however if power is kept by brutal force. A lot of people died in the 1990s protests in China, the only country where the mass protests of people did not lead to a change of regime from communism to democracy.
But they are doing well now. They are kind of doing what Gorbachev did in the 80s, before the overthrow of the regime, that is slowly and gradually opening up. SO the people might overthrow their government soon as they did in Russia, or they might collectively decide some other form of governance. Democracy is not the only optimal option. We just have not thought of any other because we have not had to and just as the guys in china put up with communism, we do with democracy.
My point is, leave China to the sovereignty and will of its own people. Now, North Korea does need help.
If these methods are entirely ineffective, why is the Chinese government so afraid of letting the 1989 Tiananmen events be public knowledge?
What I'm saying is - you can affect change without violating those two things.