Oh, I meant it in the most literal sense possible. It is not possible to achieve the kind of breakneck-pace modernization that has taken place over the last ~30 years in a country as large and diverse as China without a very centralized, authoritarian government that doesn't fuck around.

The reason why Japan (and Taiwan and South Korea, to a lesser extent) was able to modernize at a similar rate from ~1950-1990 was because of its ethnic and cultural homogeneity. They technically have a democracy, but everyone is so alike that, in practice, the same political party (the LDP) stayed in power for that entire period. There is no way in hell that a similar situation could occur in China.

China's modernization has no doubt come at a terrible price, albeit one that Americans, as a democratic and (supposedly) just country, are able to ignore thanks to our ability to collectively ignore the cognitive dissonance.