One of my roommates in undergrad was from China, and whenever he went back to China to visit his family, we literally couldn't contact him because all the messaging apps/services we use are blocked in China.
Another family friend of mine lived and taught in Macau as a professor for a while, and he explained how he had to get a VPN just to access the regular internet.
Any government that locks down access like that is not one worthy of admiration. It's insane that people defend the CCP.
You have to understand that there are a lot of people that genuinely like the CCP because under them, there are a lot of people that went from the likes of farmers and factory workers to a serious middle class, with all the improvements to the quality of life that entails. You'd be surprised what people are willing to forgive in exchange for this.
The CCP monitoring program also extends far beyond the country borders as well, and while they would not dare do an extraordinary rendition for pissing off the CCP, many expats still have family within Chinese borders that are completely fair game for the CCP to do as they please with. So many expats won't risk it. The CCP are already known for fucking with families just because some of its members have expatriated. And they don't have a limit to how far they'll go. Concentration camps are nothing new there.
What is interesting is if you are roaming in China, you can hope the wall (firewall) automatically. I went to China once with Google Fi and I didn't need a VPN for my phone. I guess it makes it more hidden to tourists that the firewall is there.
It's very first-world of you that access to garbage like Reddit or Twitter is apparently more important than the single greatest reduction of poverty in human history—and even more typical that you are either ignorant of or deliberately ignoring the hundred years of precedent that says China is utterly correct in believing the West would abuse the lowering of the Great Firewall to try and foment reactionary revolt.
There are several countries that underwent a massive reduction in poverty and modernization over the same time period without having a Great Firewall and massive restriction of speech on the internet. South Korea and Taiwan come to mind. Started as highly impoverished dictatorships, now are wealthy and healthy democracies.