Ignoring everything that American media will tell you about China, the Chinese people seem to be quite happy with their central government. Far more than any western country would even consider possible for themselves.

It stands to reason that a capitalist state which hopes to maintain even a sheer facade of democracy and freedom of the press and speech, would do everything in its power to ensure that public opinion considers even the most successful socialist states as abject failures and something to be feared, maintaining that capitalism is the best thing the human mind can possibly conjure. This would ensure that the public never considers socialist ideas to be a realistic option worth educating each other about or exercising any of their democratic power to push for, so that the state never has to seriously confront anyone questioning the power of capital, and even gives the state cover to operate against socialist regimes and actors as a “humanitarian” or “national security” threat.

The delegitimization is already done to the point that the question of socialism is a non-starter, all thought is terminated at the mere mention of it, and the state media can jump straight to calling people terrorists and dictators without anyone questioning it or the words losing any weight.