I've been wondering how I could bring this up with the mainland Chinese I know. It's particularly difficult, because for some of them I'm in a supervisory/managerial role, but I don't want to put pressure on them, which would raise all sort of other ethical dilemmas and would likely not be effective. Anyone else can share experiences?
It's hard to change minds when the education system doesn't support free thinking that challenges authority, when identity is caught up with national pride and the us vs them mentality. That's why it's important to use language like CCP instead of China to separate the people from the government.
The most common defense is whataboutism. Talk about Uigher camps in Xingjiang or the Hong Kong protests? "But America has racism, and police beatdowns." The argument against democracy is that the people aren't educated enough to handle voting, for example and bring up covid cases in the US.
I had a conversation a while back with my cousin, who didn't like Morey's (NBA GM) comments about Hong Kong and supported the Rockets ban. me: "But it's his personal opinions, can't he say what he wants?" cousin: "No, because he's a known person. It's like Xi saying California isn't a part of the US." cousin: "That's fine, because everybody knows it's not true. We'll just think he's dumb." cousin (jokingly): "that's just the cultural difference between east and west"
Unfortunately, it's hard to bring up any real nuanced conversation, and especially hard to change any minds. (i.e. like how none of the HK protestors key demands were to actually separate, something many people in China thought)