They do actually allow protests. Western media was having a fucking field day earlier this year talking about how China had bowed to pressure from protests regarding their covid policy.
You mean the revolt that happened after people burned to death in their own homes when the state locked them in? The revolt that state censors still tried to remove from the internet? The one police cracked down on?
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
I feel the zero COVID protests were the exception that proves the rule. The policy outlived its usefulness in light of less deadly strains, and the protests gave Xi an easy transition. Appeasement was the right choice, but one extremely out of character for the central government.
"the exception that proves the rule" doesn't just mean any evidence against your point is actually evidence for your point. it means that something is only notable because it's usually rare.
Did you know that Deng Xiaoping, the leader of China during the Tiananmen Square protests, resigned from all official positions shortly after the protests? I don't recall Nixon doing anything similar over Kent State, however.
they also repealed the hong kong extradition law in response to those protests. Although admittedly once they fulfilled the demands of the protest and the protest continued they then cracked down more