My second response

John,

Who told you told that China will necessarily splinter if free speech and democracy are introduced?
The Party in government of course. Dictatorial governments that are in power not by popular will but that maintain their rule by force always use fear to keep in power. It's a classic trick -- you should read some history, history teaches us a lot because human beings are always essentially the same. You mentioned Nazi Germany in your response as an example of how all countries make mistakes sometimes -- not only sometimes, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust happened because the German people accepted a dictatorship that decided everything without democracy. Same as in the China of Mao and the Communist Party. And just like the Chinese Communist Party the Nazi Party also used fear to make people believe they needed a strong dictatorial government:
-- they said the country will break down because all of Europe wants to split Germany in many countries, because it's too powerful and big
-- they said intellectuals, people who want to speak their opinions will destroy the country
-- they said what we need is total unity and progress, to have a strong Germany
Funny isn't it, how it sounds just like what the CCP says?
These are classic fear techniques that any dictatorship uses to justify its being in power.
The Party told you -- China you fall apart if we have free speech and democracy -- you tell me China is too big and poor, it wouldn't work here. That just works in smaller and rich countries. How about India? India is only slightly smaller than China, it has 1.12 billion people, it is as poor or in many places poorer than China, it has more ethnic and language groups than in China so is supposedly less homogenous, has lots of foreign investment there to protect and development to promote -- and yet, lo and behold it has a fully functioning democracy and has had for decades. Now why is China any different?
Don't repeat what you heard from propaganda but think for yourself and carefully.

Miguel