[Pay08]

People seemingly often forget how brutal Chinese authoritarianism can be. I don't know whether it's the fault of the news or if it's selective amnesia, but there are few worse cases of authoritarianism than the country that welded people into their apartments.

[kibwen]

You're giving people too much credit. People in general simply do not care about whether or not a government has committed atrocities, even when that includes their own government, as long as they think (rightly or wrongly (usually wrongly)) that atrocities won't be happening to them.