Of course you don't see the opposition. It's everywhere. Mobile phones without freedom of speech? Foreign churches without foreign ideas? American DVDs without American ideas?
Keep dreaming.
The internet connections that flow to the West carry millions of new minds every year. People will not be content to live as peasants under the Communist aristocrats forever, especially when they know full well how many rights the 'barbarians' enjoy.
All these signs are there but what is the unity between unemployed peasants, Buddhists from Tibet, Islamists from Xinjiang province and discontented intellectuals? Where is the link? Very little. And where is the organisation that can bring them together?
Traditionally, that organization has been force. China is a wide country with many deep differences, both linguistic and cultural. Even among the Han they are far from monolithic. When freedom makes her bloody arrival in China, the call of separatism, now spoken in whispers, will be heard far and wide.
But although China has got off in the new century on the right foot, I think we are in for a rough ride. It has never been and is not going to be smooth
Like a man trying to walk without moving his right leg, China will soon find that without intellectual freedom, they will not be able to fully realize their potential. Once they dare to move the away from Total Obedience to the Chinese Communist Party, there will be a terrible breakdown in Chinese society. It will be for the best, in the long run, but it will indeed be a rough ride.
Third World republics all across the globe from Brazil to Indonesia to Turkey to S. Africa have all the "intellectual freedom" in the world, yet they just continue to be economic basketcases plagued by chronic parliamentary gridlock while China races ahead. The only "potential" they seem to have is a talent for requesting IMF bailouts.