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?

Not really, the execute anyone who does not believe the emperor is a god law pretty much rules out ancient China being a democracy.

China is beginning to realise how inferior socialism is and is adopting capitalism, though with the express purpose of extracting money from the west with masses of cheap low quality goods and not looking like a pile of shite compared to it's westernised neighbours. Though with capitalism comes the need for education and with an educated middle class comes people who are of worth to the state and who question what they have been indoctrinated to believe. You cannot eliminate tyranny without letting the proletariat become bourgeoisie. Tyrants like to keep proletariats proletariat, often by demonising education and intelligence and promoting ignorance.

Confucius was one of the great Chinese philosophers ranking with Plato in logic, so was Tao. The trouble is China had no Galileos or protestants. Catholics love to claim that the enlightenment triggerred science, indeed Italy did lay some of the foundations for science, but no more than China would or had done. It was in protestant Germany and England that people decided to say "Nullius in Verba", even if it was just to smite catholicism and gain support for protestantism. In fact the idea of smiting tyranny and supporting other rulers (even if they are only slightly less despotic) has been one of the major forces for liberty which cannot arise by the idea alone.

With the rise of a middle class in China this set of events will undoubtedly take place. China is still an open and heavily cultured and bureaucratic oligarchic tyranny though.