That's the thing: to be frank, China is "smart" with its use of oppression. It doesn't oppress most people unless they go outside the bounds it's set in place.

That's the thing: to be frank, China is "smart" with its use of oppression. It doesn't oppress most people unless they go outside the bounds it's set in place. Unlike the average totalitarian state, it provides most of the population a very clear "golden path" to avoiding all of that nastiness. There's a carrot, not just a stick. It uses brutality and oppression and censorship to push people into conformance, to saying what it wants them to say, to playing by its rules. And in exchange, it gives them a genuinely mostly-prosperous lifestyle. It isn't moral, but I do believe it's sustainable. The story is different for the Uighurs, of course. They are oppressed by default. But they're also a minority, so as morally reprehensible as it is, they simply don't carry enough power to matter to the CPC. They can be kept in the shadows, abused, and the majority population either doesn't know or doesn't care. Personally I think this may be the greatest human rights crisis of our time. But unfortunately, in this case, I don't think that will translate to an unsustainable society which eventually collapses.