Actually, the fact that there were Chinese protests against the draconian Covid lockdowns in China supports my point. Despite the fact that China is an Orwellian police state, if people care enough about a problem because their lives are miserable and intolerable, they have no choice but to rebel. And there are more than a billion nonreligious people in China.

The main reasons those many people don't unite in rebellion against the totalitarianism are twofold, and neither point has to do with the government's power. Again, if the people cared enough about their problems, they'd have no choice but to rebel, and no government could withstand a billion people revolting.

No, the reasons are just that, first, atheism itself can't unite anyone because it has little positive content, so the secularists in China are still quite divided. And second, as I argue in the article, China's totalitarianism is consistent with the Confucian, collectivist aspect of traditional Chinese culture. So while the people may not like being treated harshly, they agree with the principle of sacrificing individual happiness for the greater good of collective harmony.