[czep]

The government doesn't fear intelligent people, who are by definition smart enough not to risk their career or physical safety to openly criticize. This "sizable population of intelligent English-reading Chinese" are primarily focused on exploiting Party connections to help them build wealth, and then expatriate the money beyond the government's reach.

Nobody is talking about a revolution, that would be suicide. The intelligentsia are far more concerned with using government to their advantage, which naturally responds very well to money exchanged for favors (like how baidu got rid of Google).

It's poor people that government worries about. Because when poor people rise up, that's bad news for anyone in power who hasn't yet fled the country. And if most poor people don't read English, well then there is not much harm in allowing some printed criticism of the Party, as long as it's in English.