What taking over territory? This is another narrative people claim uncritically. CCP claims (AND DISPUTES) are inherited from ROC who inherited from Qing. China had/has the most land borders in the world, and CCP settled 12/14 with a few extremely minor clashes, and all except Pakistan with MORE land concessions (Pakistan wanted to spite India). Chinese territory SHRUNK under CCP. By any measure this is the most relative peaceful ratification of that many borders in shortest period of time. The two remaining unsettled border is India/Bhutan (aka one border)... you can check India's border settlement history (or lack of) to see whose more belligerent. Maritime disputes? Reduced from ROCs 11-dash to 9-dash. All those SCS land reclamation? Out of 6 countries who dispute the territory China was the 2nd last to reclaim land or weaponize any features - Brunei is good boi. Vietnam has twice as many features. It was doing so in response to other countries prior reclamation (and US pivot to Asia). The only difference is China doing her thing at her scale will be greater, even though she's doing it with 2% GDP to military, lower than most in the region and about how much Trump wants NATO to spend. And she's doing so with greyzone tactics and very little force. The only other country with comparable economic size as China ain't advancing geopolitical interests peacefully. Nor many countries considerably smaller, see France in Africa. Sidebar: Japan has active disputes with Russia, South/North Korea, ROC, China, aka every neighbour. Wonder why they don't get any attention. Objectively, China's territorial disputes has been so far resolved in the most peaceful manner given her scale and numbers of again, inherited disputes. Unless you think CCP should abnegate territory for no reason. So US can contain it better? Giving up inherited land and security is political suicide anywhere. She already gave up >51% of land in most disputed land claims, that's down right magnanimous by historic standards.
As for growth + authoritarianism. No. CCP grew from the same model as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, harsh dictatorship -> industrialization / manufacturing -> liberalization (Manchukuo model for Asian Tigers). Except China has 1.4B people and no US protection umbrella, which all those other countries received, so naturally this will take longer. Though full democracy is pipe dream, at best single party dictatorship like Singapore with some liberal values. In the mean time, unlike other Asian Tigers it has to try to grow with an antagonist US building bases to contain her while selling arms to the others even WHILE they were dictatorships. US stopped arms export to China after Tiananmen massacre. They didn't to South Korea after Gwangju massacre. Or Taiwan during White Terror. Hmmm. The fact is CCP had to work harder and smarter than any of those countries to uplift 400m (greater than population of other Tigers combined) into prosperity and 600m above poverty and there's _still_ another 400m in poverty despite eclipsing those countries in pretty much every industry except integrated circuits. The task is that great. Oh also throw in indigenous (copycat) military, space program, nuclear program etc etc. The only other viable model in the 20th century is authoritarian petro states, that doesn't work for 1.4B.
It's not heartless to recognize this. Like acknowledging XJ is ridiculous COIN reaction comparable 911. But at the end of the day, it's <0.1% of Chinese population so... bluntly it's a relatively small atrocity being exploited by Chinahawks for geopolitical ends. My extended family went through cultural revolution, one-child policy (family planning, aka sterilization) it sucked, wasn't genocide. They all live pretty comfortably now because those times ended. And that's one saving grace about CCP, their somewhat technocratic and goal oriented, if a movement doesn't work, it will end or they'll try something else. Not actual genocide though, because that will look bad in Xi's historiography. Re-reducation movements have end conditions. And that's what they are, per leaked internal memos themselves. Only western propaganda like that you cite + Godwin delusions try to paint it as genocide. This is like if people saw Wikileaks video of "Collateral Murder" where US gunships gun down civlians and conclude US is nuking Middle East. It's smooth brained projection. Regardless, these camps will end. Best case scenario in 10 years XJ will be a secular city with developed infrastructure and the people integrated. Or they'll try something with more stick / carrot, but it won't last forever, because unlike US prison industrial complex, or indigenous camps it's not designed to keep them down. All this is to say, analyzing CCP actions is not endorsement of CCP actions. I recognize CCP uses disproportionate force in some domains, but also overall they simply use very little force since opening up, because that's what all metrics point to normalized for Chinese scale. Again CCP bad, they should strive to be less bad, but in aggregate, mostly good. Some of us who follows the subject for a long time can discuss it with nuance without fake news claims "UN accused it of Genocide when it's US propagandist wants to labelled it as such. Or" China bans western social media". Unless you're fine with another Iraq WMD escalation and the aftermath such entails, facts matter.