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South Korea achieved democracy when their GDP per capita was $4k. China's GDP per capita is approaching $9k. When will they be rich enough that they yearn for democracy?

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The PRC will most likely not escape the Middle Income Trap before their population pyramid massively inverts. No other country has aged so quickly at such a large scale before. Their population and working age groups are at the largest they will ever be right now and will steadily decline starting in 5-10 years.

I think collapse of the current government is more likely than a peaceful ROC-esque (Taiwan) transition from dictatorship to democracy.

I'd argue that the ROC transition was not peaceful at all. Thousands of civilians were killed in the February 28 massacre [1] and tens of thousands imprisoned in the ensuing White Terror [2], and martial law did not end until 30+ years later. But now I think Taiwan is by far the leading democracy in east Asia.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_incident [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

Well, "peaceful" relative to historical Chinese government transitions at least. :D

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