>>36040
>As far as I know, even "democratic" Taiwan still show some specific Chinese state and society traits.
Taiwan was under autocratic rule for decades, they also had a strong and determined leadership. In the brief period the KMT had previously gotten a semblance of hegemony over the mainland (the Nanjing decade) China was already gearing up for fast development, and at the same time Japanese-controlled Manchuria had its industrial boom. Other Far Eastern economies ahead of mainland China's (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong) were for most of the second half of the last century or up to this day either autocratic or democratic but incomplete/monopolized by a single party. It might not have much to do with autocracy: those states have good governance as demonstrated by their reaction to this year's pandemic being the best in the developed world.

>>36056
>This illusion might come from their numbers and the overcrowded giant cities many of them live in.
And also from the Maoist period. Mao didn't implement his ideas through simple top-down legalistic imposition like Soviet collectivization, but got the masses to his side and had them enthusiastically carry out his campaigns at the local level. Hence one fatso in Beijing orders the murder of sparrows and immediately hundreds of thousands are putting all their hearts to kill sparrows. This was also part of his power strategy as he got ideological zealots at the bottom of the political hierarchy to fight with their superiors, weakening the superiors' ability to oppose him. As an outsider it's hard not to get an impression of ants at first sight.