Bingo.
In the West, we often assume that economic freedom inexorably leads to political freedom.
That simply cannot be backed up from world history.
There have been plenty of kleptocratic or oligarchic regimes which were just as authoritarian as any dictatorship or hereditary monarchy.
Fascism is probably the best modern equivalent to the direction in which China appears to be moving, but there are many older examples from Renaissance Europe. Prussia, Imperial Japan from the late 1800s until the end of World War II, and several other more-or-less free enterprise economies also provide examples of nations in which a relatively small number of major business owners held great influence in but not final control over governmental decisions.
A good case can be made that fascism, by moving economic power into the hands of a relatively large number of businessmen whose success has at least some relationship to their merits, can be a transition step to political freedom.
But modern Chinese history seems to be proving that what can happen doesn't always happen.
>>>Bingo.
In the West, we often assume that economic freedom inexorably leads to political freedom.
That simply cannot be backed up from world history.<<<
In modern history political freedom comes only out of economy.
Wealthy people are much more demanding in terms of respecting their rights and dignity.
The poor doesn’t need any freedom, they are willingly selling their votes to a highest bidder as we can see in Central and Southern America, Africa, Ukraine etc.
All of these nations has formal representative governments very similar to that of developed nations but there are neither rights nor freedoms.
Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Singapore - all were a dictatorships as far as 1950s. They had their enormous economic growth at the time and got a majority wealthy middle class which has transformed these nations into functional republics.
If one thinks China is any different he is a fool. It wasn’t much different from North Korea just 40 years ago, today both China on par with Russia considered decadent capitalist nations by the Norks.