Of course they did. PRC is country that skews old and conservative. Half the reason behind media crack down are cantankerous parents and grand parents telling governments they don't want loose western morals spoiling impressionable minds. Outside of western reporting, PRC libtards are relatively extinct compared to vast amount numbers of papa / grandpa wang who don't want to accidentally watch tits n ass or have uncomfortable imported culture war talks with their live-in kids. The only aggregious censorship that lowkey half of the population wants to get rid of is pornography but that's an Asian thing (also guess which half). There are many of policies easily explained by CCP having to appease the people where feasible because their legitimacy depends on it, unlike "democratic" systems where competing parties bunts the responsiblity to the next guy. Or that fractous multi-cultural societies make cultural wars different political party has idpol positions staked very difficult to win. In China, CCP gets pulse on mass culture and enforces it. Yes they can also manufacture identity for political ends but for something like imported mass media, much simpler/easier/pragmatic to embrace opinion of a billion conservative prudes.
Implying formal enfranchisement is required to choose when being loud in numbers petitioning/screaming at officials is enough and frequently more effective when said officials gets drown in shit if they fail to maintain political serenity. There's a reason Chinese trust in government is near record levels compared to declining trust in western systems which sure are good at choosing but miserable at delivering. Being performative is orthogonal to being performant. "They can't choose" is such a tired and useless gotcha when plurality of "choosers" / voters in prominenant democracies don't actually think voting is useful mechanism for choosing, until compared to highly performant authoritarian systems. Then it is, because reasons.
Laughs in Hong Kong.
But sure, look at China's long history of protest and tell me they respect the will of the people. You're right about one thing, "serenity" (or "harmony") is the name of the game. Lots of ways to pacify the people, giving them what they want is only one.
Lots of long term systematic survey/polling methods from western institutions in last two decades (i.e. pre-Xi) all comport with basic trend that PRC citizens don't trust local gov but trust central gov. One could be cheeky as insinuate Chinese polling more reliable than western polling that has many predictive failures vs CCP polling because CCP still in power and PRC hasn't collapsed but have only gotten institutionally stronger.
>Laughs in Hong Kong.
Laughs in mainland PRC who overwhelmingly wanted to tame HK. 99% of population versus <1%, so obviously respecting the will of the people. Well minor exaggeration, if CCP respected will of the people they would have subdued HK 5 years earlier during Unmbrella. There's always implement lag, no system's perfect.
I'm familiar with protests in PRC, local protests get loud enough, concerns get forwarded to central gov... and where feasbile gets addressed, because central gov actually scared shitless to mass mobilization. Except CCP tends to deliver tangible results not like western short term virtual signalling.
>giving them what they want is only one ... >pacify the people
Isn't that governance 101, preserve peace and give people what they want?