From what I read (no first hand experience, and based only on relatively shallow news & nonfiction reading), the CCP's aims don't rely on complete control of in

From what I read (no first hand experience, and based only on relatively shallow news & nonfiction reading), the CCP's aims don't rely on complete control of information. They want political control of the public sphere, for which purpose all they need to do is keep infractions below the surface. There's a nod-nod-wink-wink with the emerging middle class: "pretend in public that everything is as the Party says, whether you privately believe this to be true or not, and we'll deliver the goods". They don't require loyal hearts, just broad obedience. What they're vulnerable to isn't information leakage, but a future failure to deliver the goods (in which respect they're not that much different from liberal democracies). So far 3 decades of predictions that they would fail to continue holding a lid on the public sphere, and 10 years of predictions that they would fail to deliver the goods, have all been wrong. Which is unsurprising given that those predictions were rarely based on anything more substantial than a priori and ahistorical liberal dogma.