The thing about authoritarian regimes, is that they are brittle. They show absolutely no signs of bending, right up until the point that they break. Of course, most of the time, they don't break at all. They withstand the stress, without bending at all, and eventually the stress goes away.
The tricky thing is, a brittle regime that is about to break, looks (from the outside, at least) exactly like one that is not going to break. You can rationalize after the fact why this uprising succeeded, and that other one failed to change anything, but I'm not sure that is was the case that the one was guaranteed to succeed and the other fail. Is China about to see a regime break? Or just hold out, refuse to change, and prevail unchanged? I think, it is not possible to tell from the outside, and maybe not even from the inside.
Recently captured so eloquently in the manifesto from Andor:
There will be times when the struggle seems
impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy
Remember this, Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts
of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no
idea that they've already enlisted in the cause.
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
And remember this: the Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires
constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle.
Oppression is the mask of fear.
Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empires's
authority and then there will be one too many.
The tricky thing is, a brittle regime that is about to break, looks (from the outside, at least) exactly like one that is not going to break. You can rationalize after the fact why this uprising succeeded, and that other one failed to change anything, but I'm not sure that is was the case that the one was guaranteed to succeed and the other fail. Is China about to see a regime break? Or just hold out, refuse to change, and prevail unchanged? I think, it is not possible to tell from the outside, and maybe not even from the inside.
All of which applies to Iran as well, btw.