who wants to live in an autocracy where big brother is watching...

who wants to live in an autocracy where big brother is watching you and your life has lots of no-no's in it .....particularly if you have already known freedom

hence the Chinese brain drain which we have also seen in russia
prior to Xi things were not so harsh as they now are

the big problem China had was the CCP ....which is now much worse under Xi
even Chinese national interest comes second to the party and every chinese know that
the CCP tolerates no competetion or anything that even gets popular and may be influential ...Falun Gong , the church ....the party is god in China

what China had prior to Xi wasn't perfect ....a benign dictatorship that got replaced every 10 years .....but was pretty good actually
what Xi has turned that into is pretty terrible and just doesn't really work