“There is also a sense in China from what happened a 100 years ago that if there is no strong central authority China becomes a collection of war lord ruled states.”
I agree - what’s keeping China whole is a very strong central government. If they were to become “democratic” I could see the place splintering into many states, given the various ethnic groups, languages and religions.
One has to give the rulers there a lot of credit for being wise enough to keep the masses reasonably happy and create pride in their country with the economic progress and, as a result, military and world influence that they’ve achieved. They’ve also given them a lot more freedom than they’ve had in the past.
It’s a pretty good facsimile of a benevolent dictatorship.
Of course people’s needs change, and there will come a time when their needs will include more direct say on how they’re governed. That will be the big challenge for the regime when the time comes.
Thought that was true of Tito and Yugoslavia, but as we saw, once Tito was gone from the scene, the leadership was incapable of keeping Yugoslavia together.