Given that hundreds of millions of people living in it had to go outside to shit in an outhouse four decades ago, but are now living first-world and nearly first-world lifestyles, you tell me if any of that wealth made it to them.

People tolerate the CCP because of the clear material gains they have seen in their lives. If some strongman authoritarian stood with a megaphone on Main Street and credibly promised Americans one tenth of that gain in prosperity, they'd elect him dictator for life.

The same basic rags-to-richest pattern was true for most US citizens a century ago, and no we're now objectively some of the richest people in the world. But despite this progress, US politics does not indicate that the US populace is deeply satisfied. Which leads to the real question: will the CCP still be as popular when material progress plateaus?

> will the CCP still be as popular when material progress plateaus?

they know they won't be - people's demand continues to grow, and not just material wants, but "spiritual" wants (aka, they want more representation in the political system to make decisions). Of course, this only manifests after some material wealth threshold has been reached.

It's also why i conspiratorially believe that the CCP is deliberately ensuring chinese yuan is continuously debased, and kept artificially low. It ensures that the people's wealth in general is not high enough to reach that threshold i mentioned above.