China and democracy

Ok, this is somehow bugging me... just until a few minutes ago, there has been a thread on /b/ in which this issue was kinda discussed (you know /b/...).
The whole argument was about which future super-power the /b/tards would prefer, China or the United States, and somehow, somebody said that if China was democratic, it would be best or something.

So, can China really be democratic? Even in our lifetime, could something like this happen?

If you look at China's history, you'd clearly say no. China has been a "modern" state since 960. With the downfall of the Tang-Dynasty, they got rid of the feudal system and established a bureaucracy, where everybody, given that he got proper education and passed the tests, could be a state official (although you'd have to be wealthy enough to afford such education, which limits it, but hey, even in modern states of today, things are similar). Also, one Chinese state official was responsible for a lot of people, at some times the number was as high as 200.000. Imagine that today, one little bureaucrat responsible for the needs of so many people.
Also, just until 300 years ago I'd say, China was technologically superior to the western nations. China was one of the first cultures to develop a fully functional writing system which has endured proven its practicability by being used until today. Paper (and by that I mean widely useable and not expensive like papyrus) as well as block printing are Chinese inventions. They were well aware of their superiority, which lead them to not really actively colonize other nations (which a nation with over 100 million inhabitants could easily achieve, I'd say), but instead wait for them to be interested in China and voluntarily pay tribute to them, which a lot of states in South East Asia did for example. Although this ultimately gave birth to arrogance and their downfall by not aknowledging European states, Chinese superiority was quite obvious at the time.

On the other hand, and I know that I'll generalize a lot right now, but hey, I'm not trying to describe individuals, but the Chinese people, so bear with it, there's has practically never been any kind of any evidence for a democratic movement or even human rights in China, or even an actual revolution.
The state went so far as to introduce collevtive punishment for the whole family when one member comitted a crime.
Also, the Chinese were ruled by foreign powers for a long time.
From 1260-1368 it was the Mongols under the descendants of Genghis Khan, from 1644-1911, they were ruled by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. You may not see where I'm getting at with this, but what I wanted to point out, that the Chinese aren't patriotic in any kind. They did not resist to their foreign masters, just because they were strangers, only when economic circumstances went bad. So, if the Chinese aren't really interested in who is actually ruling them, can this really be a good foundation for democracy? I don't think so.
Also, as I was pointing out before, the Chinese have never had any kind of philosophical movement like the Enlightenment in the west which gave birth to human rights. Instead, the dominant philosophy in China is confucianism, which is basically about obeying. Honor the emperor, honor your parents, and so on. This of course forbids any critisicm of the government, and bad-mouthing the emperor has been punishable by death, a practice which was  also continued after the communists took over.

So, by making a long story short: China and democracy, a possibility or never going to happen?

>>11
Ok, point granted, people who are screwed over by fate. Who really are capable, but were brought up with drunk parents in a school where kids bully the ones who spend time studying and the teachers don't really care about anything other than their paycheck.

It isn't fair and clearly the government has some responsiblity to step in and give thse people a leg up, but when that time comes when this person say applies for a government grant to study human biology so that the person can prove to a university he is capable of becomming a physician. Let's say this country is particularly poor and cannot teach many students to college level. How can you be sure that the person is intelligent and determinned? How can you know whether the privately taught student vying for the same position is less intelligent than the poor student and simply had a better education?

In terms of utility it is very difficult to determine what people need from what they want, socialism and meritocracy work hand in hand in places like the military where people who are capable are obvious from those who are incapable, but in situations like this other ideas are needed. The naturally occurring idea of you either merit spectacularly or your rich daddy pays for your scholarship in this situation is better than trying to pay for everyone who wants to get into this sole college, or some famous college or whatever congruent situation you can think of whereby not everyone can gain a service.

Socialism < capitalism with a slight lean to meritocracy < hypothetical better idea someone can come up with

There is not such thing as 100% meritocracy, some people's parents die and leave them with some asshole uncle and other's are charismatic millionaires and raise them to be well rounded human beings. Meritocracy and socialism are more like objectives than practical solutions. We could just grab everyone put them in youth camps, indoctrinate and educate them to be super citizens and rank their merits scientifically, but that would involve autocracy, unless by pure chance such a system was voted in democratically.