You're arguing from the ideology that arbitrary freedom is good, whereas China operates under a "do what's good for you" sort of ideology.
If we think about those two ideologies, one could flip your "is it possible for it to not be unified" to "is it possible for it to not have freedom" to illustrate the inherent ideological bias in the question. It may seem like an attempt at being inflammatory, but consider that for vaccines, for example, many people actually believe that we shouldn't get to decide against medical recommendation.
I posit that neither ideology is necessarily superior, given that empirically we know of both good and bad outcomes for both sides (e.g. your argument about their lack of freedom of speech vs theirs about our botched covid handling due to "freedom" SJWs)
And to reiterate: I do think "unified" is a loaded term: it implies everyone should be on board with whatever the CCP decides, because it's for the "common good", when in reality that's not a belief held equally by everyone. (Incidentally, it also implies that the US is functionally stuck on inaction due political bickering, a position that I find somewhat accurate, especially on matters of public welfare, e.g. healthcare reform)
Personally, I think always coloring things with one ideology doesn't work because each topic is different, hence my suggestion to seek different opinions outside of our own echo chambers.