Diegetics

I think that this would be very likely. Taiwan was a democracy by the time it reached a GDP per capita of around $15,000 PPP, and China should reach that long before 2030. It is very unusual for a non-petrolium-dominated state to be non-democratic if the GDP per capita is above $15,000. In fact, most democracies became democracies at much lower income levels. Indonesia, the most populated muslim-majority country, has been a democracy for about five years in spite of a GDP per capita of around $4,000. And if a bunch of muzzies can do it, the Chinese can do it.

Also, 80 is an auspicious number in Chinese culture, and in 2029 it will be the 80th year after the founding of the "People's Republic" of China and in 2030 it will be the 80th year after the "Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries", when millions were put to death. This may increase the chances of unrest.

I would be very surprised if China weren't a democracy by 2040. I suspect that the silk revolution will happen around 2031, give or take five years.

I doubt it. Confucianism is not democratic and Chinese tend to go back to Confucianism everytime they are given the chance. I'm not saying that elections and a multiparty system will never be introduced in China, but it will be as democratic as Singapore...

I think China will do much better with a stable Totalitarianism than anything else.

I think they'll end up with more of a meritocratic oligarchy, which is more what Confucianism teaches. Democracy might not be workable at that scale (it's questionable how well it works in India) and they moved away from Communist totalitarianism by the end of the Deng Xiaoping era.

Pericles would have regarded it as partly oligarchical, which it is. You just watch the Tea Partiers get absorbed...

When Britain was on the make in 18C, it was ruled by an oligarchical elite with a lot of corruption. Old Sarum, with 10 inhabitants, returned 2 MPs while Manchester and Birmingham returned none. Ethics were decidedly amoral (the slave trade was largely in British hands). The law was savage way beyond modern Chinese levels. The reason why Britain did not have a revolution and France did:
- British gentlemen, even Dukes, did not think that trade was beneath them
- they paid most of the taxes, while French aristocrats paid none
- there was free speech and, more or less, a fair rule of law.

The latter does not apply in China, and not sure about the second. Democracy is so much part of the modern package that the regime is still horribly insecure, and the peasants think that the fat cats are skinning them (well, in the West, too...) Without free speech you get inefficiency, due to poor feedback, as well as injustice.

I think China will go democratic but it will be messy, beware the rise of the Triads. Also, don't expect a democratic China to be any less nationalistic then today, indeed with legitimacy perhaps more so.

For once, Colonel Sun, I am in total agreement with you. Once China achieves super power status we will see what the real China is like, and I assure everyone nobody is going to like it. One of my students works for the Portuguese Foreign Affairs protocol service and she had the most incredible stories to tell about President Hu Jintao's entourage during their recent visit to Portugal. Arrogant, rude, ignorant, were some of the words she used to characterize them...

From a heartless realpolitik perspective, the best outcome that the West could hope for with regards to China would be the type of collapse of the Chinese economy that some have predicted. Incorrectly so far.