> On the one hand, I've heard that authoritarianism is soul-crushing and I've been raised to believe that individual freedom is paramount.
You need to be aware that you're buying into a persistent pro-Western, anti-China propaganda.
If you survey a random sampling of Chinese citizens, the vast majority of them would in no way find the system they're living under "soul crushing". Yes, people of Xinjiang and Tibet live under brutal paramilitary rule and those issues have gained special salience in the West but they represent a tiny fraction of the Chinese population. If you happen to be a political advocate or trying to shed light on human rights, then the Chinese government is not a pleasant adversary (although again, the stories in the West focus solely on the worst cases. I know plenty of Chinese NGO workers who are fighting the good fight while playing enough by the rules that they've forged a productive partnership with the government). But, for the median Chinese person, the weight of the government rests pretty lightly on their shoulders as they just want to have economic opportunity, raise their children well and enjoy their lives.
I tell people that, in many ways, life in China is much freer than life in America. The Chinese system looks totalitarian from the outside but, from most facets, more closely resembles ungovernable anarchy. The CCP has been likened to the Eye of Sauron, overwhelming it it's power when it gazes on you but can only focus on a limited set of concerns at any one time. There's a reason why the air that the leaders breathe in Beijing continues to be extremely polluted and it's because the power the CCP has in Beijing province over factory owners in neighboring Hebei province is, by design, so limited that even Beijing Rulers can't clean up their own air.
For day to day life in China, there's a real sense of mind your own business, to each their own indifference which is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. People renovate their houses in crazy ways and their neighbors don't care, I've seen empty concrete shells transform into functioning business in a matter of weeks as there's very little red tape you need to comply with. There's regularly blue trucks on the road that visibly fail China's emission regulations and are the cause of the bulk of the vehicle pollution but it doesn't matter because the trucking company knows how to pay off the right inspectors.
If you speak to most Chinese people, they're generally in favor of more government, not less because they feel Chinese society is too 乱 (messy) still and the government hasn't reached far enough into people's lives to provide enough of a civilizing force. That's one of the many reasons why, despite Social Credit being so derided in the West, it has largely broad support from within Chinese society.