We aren't talking about changes from the top-down here, but from the bottom up.

Protestors are more vigourous and are often more successful. Technology, despite the governments fumble-handed attempts to restrict and control it - is spinning beyond their ability to stop.

You're not wrong in that the government is still backwards, but the PEOPLE are pushing against it now 'kicking against the man' more and more - and more and more they're getting away with it. This is simply a matter of the people deciding that they've had quite enough. They KNOW what goes on in the rest of the world now, and they're tired of their BS government. It's becoming grassroots.

What's more, the government is starting to answer. Yes, they still imprison folks but some of these protests are now succeeding. The judiciary are going, "You're right, that guy is corrupt" and then jailing party officials. It's small still, but it would have been completely unheard of thirty years ago.

No one is ever going to 'make China change.' Genghis Khan couldn't do it even after he conquered the place. All the carrots and sticks in the world are just going to bounce off that millennial culture.

They have to do it themselves. It will be slow - but the Chinese culture always has been glacial in its pace so that shouldn't surprise anyone. But they are doing it - and done that way, from within, it'll stick.