Do you think democracy can actually work in China?

[ingemann]

I think people bring up some very good points in this thread and I will also say that while China have a worse reputation for historical xenophobia and isolationism than Korea and Japan, it was in fact never as bad and it historical allowed more diversity than its two eastern neighbours. So if those two could become democracies, I see no reason for democracy not to work in China too, it have all the best traits for funtioning democracy a strong unified identity and a strong state.

Of course I think  that China will become a democracy in the future (through when is the question). The one party structure (and the nepotism which follow such structure) and lack of respect for rule of law, mean that China will hit a ceiling in economic development at some point, which will result in public resentment against the regime, which will force China to develop structure which allow the people more influence in the state and when they have begun that, democracy will become unavoidable.

[ingemann]

Liberal Democracy likely can not work in very ethnically divided countries without some common cultural denominators creating an overarching loyalty. You need to get past the tribal/clan based loyalties and that is next to impossible in some societies. But democracy can be established in other forms than the Western liberal version. A federation of clans or tribes could also be a democracy.

Well, I assume a democratic China would have strong ethnic separatist parties in regions like Xinjiang and Tibet.

I wonder what a Chinese election map would look like?

Likely, but they would be too small to sabotage the political process. Seccessionist parties need to reach some size before they're able to do that.