Occasionally, democracies elect a party that promises change and then actually delivers on it. That the status quo is mostly maintained has more to do with the fact that one high-stakes mistake can obliterate a party's reputation and completely ruin their chance at reelection, so representatives end up being more careful. It is essentially the "autocrat suppressing a revolution by populism" dynamic, except revolutions are regularly scheduled and less bloody.
> A technocratic-governed advanced society like China, can afford to make long term bets and bold moves for the good of its people, and thus in my view better deserves the mantle of caring for its citizens wellbeing.
I think caring for the wellbeing of citizens and making bold moves are mostly orthogonal, since you can make bold moves that completely ignore your citizens, but you can also care about them and not make a bold move when the risk isn't worth the benefit.
I do agree that that an autocracy can make longer-term plans and execute them more efficiently than a democracy, but if those plans turn out to be wrong, people tend to lose their lives. If you bet big, you lose big. China's 5 year plans may have lead to seventy years of economic growth, but occasionally there was widespread famine due to planning failure.
I very much doubt that China would be able to forge ahead at its current speed even after reaching a distribution of purchasing power similar to the West. Productivity gains only get you so far until there are diminishing returns. China's current growth mostly comes from taking established solutions and applying them at humongous scale. I'm not trying to imply that Chinese are only capable of copying, just that it's a hellishly effective method to further economic growth, and that growth will drop to Western levels as soon as all low-hanging fruit has been picked and copying doesn't cut it anymore.
I also don't think abusing "harmony" as an excuse to keep the population complacent is much of a Western thing. I have seen enough Chinese propaganda banners of a similar tone to believe that it is used pretty much universally to discourage dissenting opinions. You mention it yourself as a motivation for propaganda and mass deception, but phrase it as if it was a good thing.
I don't believe much of that propaganda actually ends up benefiting the people (although the daily reminder to brush your teeth might ;) ). I don't doubt that some of the people involved have good intentions, but the higher up in the party hierarchy you go, the more officials will care about securing their rank, and attempt to gain more influence. (This holds true of most social hierarchies.)
To summarize my point, I don't think China is as good as you claim it to be, nor is the West as bad, all the while not being as black-and-white as what you seem to be arguing against.