The problem is that a single-party propagandist republic is effectively a separate type of government than a representative republic and makes it harder to distinguish the will of the population.

The policies could be hidden from the vast majority of informed public opinion in a way Western conspiracists or whataboutists alike can only dream is really correspondent or directly analogous to mainstream media manipulation.

It can still be true that China’s no one’s enemy except that the Party is everyone’s enemy (while the Chinese population will be the last ones to realize it).