"And wouldn't the shock for the Chinese people just be that much worse when control over the information inevitably breaks down? "

Surprisingly this may not be the case.

Sitting next to a young Chinese national at the train station who goes to school in the USA ... he told me he likes that the 'state controls the press' for the following reason: 'because some crazy person could just, you know, get a knife and start killing people'.

It was all rather odd: that it's all about public safety, and avoiding 'crazy people with knives' - but oddly - he was living mostly in the USA. I asked him 'do you feel unsafe right now, in the US, that someone could come at you with a knife'? He replied that he did not. But the irony was lost on him.

There are a lot of people who support the 'one state / one party' thing even if they might disagree with some of the tactics here and there, they just see it in a different way.

In much the same way Russians on some level are very aware of Putin's curruption and yet look past it.