Equating this to the USA is way off the mark. If an American isn’t happy with their government they have any number of recourses, like voting for someone else, protesting, or running for office (or all of the above, and more). At the very least, they know they won’t be thrown in prison for publicly disagreeing with their government. None of those is an option in China — it’s a one-party police state where protesting is illegal and the political apparatus is so incestuous that it’s essentially impossible for a “nobody” to break in. The weight and omnipresence of “the state” is hard to describe until you feel it in person. It’s soul-crushing.
Edit: tankies, don’t come at me with “ackshually there are lots of parties in China”. I know how their congress works.