Well Chinese has been ruling by lifelong kings and dictators like Mao for thousands of years. Democracy doesn’t have a great foundation there and it just need years of cultivation through education or whatever. The culture also somewhat aligned with the “do greater good” and “society should be unionized” ideology which doesn’t make lifelong leaders look like a stupid idea
This is a common argument that Chinese/East-Asian culture makes democracy extremely difficult. The prime counter examples are Taiwan, South Korea, and even Japan. Similar cultural background, but all are able to operate in a liberal democracy in a relatively short amount of time.
Well for one thing the scale is quite different in terms of population and size. They are more like at most two Chinese provinces combined. Another thing is more historical: they are all effectively allies of the US and even with US troops deployed on their land. IMO they are not quite compelling examples.
