Glad to see that you're genuinely interested in this topic! I'll also take a look at your articles.
I think "least-illegitimate" is key here. There is a philosophy that states that only the actually available options matter, not the theoretically ideal options that never were available in the first place.
This ties in with what you said about the CCP taking their ruling position by force. Historically speaking, how the CCP got into power (and how they are composed) is as close to democracy as you get, especially considering the available options.
The CCP got into power after the Chinese civil war of 1927-1949. After the fall of the Qing dynasty in the early 20th century, the KMT (Nationalist Party) got into power. But they were both corrupt and incompetent, and their loyalists consisted mostly of the tiny elite, so people revolted. The vast majority of the (poor and rural) population supported the communists. So it's not so much that the CCP took their position by force: they got into their position because they had the overwhelming support of the populace.
There were no further options other than Qing (weak, corrupt, incompetent), KMT (slightly less weak, still corrupt & incompetent), the various warlords because China fractured into pieces (each one corrupt and brutal) and the CCP (weak but got support of the majority). The CCP was regarded as the least corrupt because it was the most grass-roots movement. It was a peasant army.
Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian citizen journalist vlogger that lives in Shenzhen, made a video in which he analyzes the CCP's history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKxQDezR7Bg
His source is the lecture "From Yao to Mao" by history professor Kenneth James Hammond, New Mexico State University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMEFNcbR0o&t=8m30s
My father-in-law explained it to me like this: 200 years ago, people were at the mercy of an emperor, who ruled by hereditary monarchy. 150 years ago, people were at the mercy of foreign imperialists, who exploited China for their own benefit. Today, the CCP rules, but the CCP consists of normal people and not a dynasty or foreigners, and therefore we have democracy.
That last sentence deserves more explanation. The CCP has 95 million members. That's about 5% of the population. This scale means that — even outside the NPC framework — there is a certain amount of people's representation just through party membership. Most party members are normal people who have a normal job outside party membership. For example teacher, factory worker, doctor. Pretty much everybody has a relative that's a party member. Party members are expected to work for the greater good. During the COVID epidemic in 2020, many frontline workers were party members. Not few of them either got sick or died.
The CCP just can't be compared to parties in western systems, it's conceptually very different. I think the name "party" is a misnomer: it's more like the fabric of the entire society. You say that it's necessary to make a distinction between people and government. But in the Chinese case, just by the sheer size of party membership, this distinction is truly very difficult to determine.
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Regarding your question about whether people know about Tiananmen and what they think: I have a radical statement to make.
The 1989 Tiananmen protests succeeded.
Not in the sense of overthrowing the government, but in the sense that the government realized that something big was going on and that people were unhappy. In response, they accelerated economic reforms and got more serious about improving people's lives. That succeeded.
This ties in a bit with what I previously said about "censorship doesn't mean that the government won't deliver". I've heard somebody explain censorship of 1989 as follows: the government is ashamed of themselves and that's why they'd rather not talk about it. But they'd still quietly do their job and address the grievances.
The Tiananmen event isn't talked about much in Chinese society. That's because, in contrast to the west, it's not known as a big scandal. A lot of the protesters have moved on, exactly because it succeeded per my above definition. Some of them regretted taking part and thought they were too naive. Nowadays, the location of Tiananmen is a popular tourist spot. People don't primarily associate the location with the 1989 event.
And the reason why it's not a big scandal is because it wasn't a massacre. There were fights yes, there were people that got injured or died yes, but it wasn't "tanks rolling over people" and "soldiers firing into crowds".
You know the famous Tank Man photo, right? Western mainstream media usually only shows that photo, or a short clip, with the implication that the man died because he was ran over. Well here's the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk
The man was never run over! The tank was trying to avoid him. The man even climbed on the tank, had a conversation with the soldier, and then the man left. Nothing happened to him. Imagine doing the same thing in a western country: you'd be shot before you even approach the tank.
This is such a huge contrast with how western mainstream media characterizes 1989, that I question their entire narrative. Leaked cables confirm that there was no massacre in the sense of the mainstream characterization of the event: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142...
There were still people killed outside the square. But it looked more like a riot that got out of hand, rather than "government one-sidedly massacres innocent people". For example, prior to the crackdown, people attacked and lynched soldiers. There are photos of burned tanks and burned soldiers.
This documentary analyzes the mainstream reporting of the event and critizes how it's characterized. The interesting thing is that his critique is based solely on western sources. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idv8Ne0xeTo
When I look at this documentary, I see that there was a lot of disingenuity in the protests — many protesters didn't know what they were doing and what they were asking, and blindly followed idealistic talking points with no regard for practical concerns, which is why from time to time I hear stories about former protesters being ashamed of how naive they were. It also looked like that the government exercised restraint as much as they could and knew how to, back at the time. The protests raged on for many days but got increasingly tense. The government tried multiple times to cool down the protesters.
Daniel Dumbrill interviewed a former Tiananmen protester. This is also a very interesting conversation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh2gLRUC6hc