You're presuming that if they had a choice, they wouldn't accept it.

The reality is that chinese goverment is - overall - delivering results. People will accept things that bring good outcomes.

There's also upsides from the surveilence and the way things are done in China which makes it way more resilient from outside influence and disruptive bad actors.

Now I don't want the same things in my country, but it suits China to some extent.