[antidisestablishment]

The best-case scenario: China's embrace of capitalism forces it to evolve into a full-fledged democracy, as people who gain economic control over their lives insist on political control as well.

And the real world scenario?

[AIG]

China is merely following the proven one-party, authoritarian path of development that the rest of E. Asia took over the past several decades to leap from Third World to First World status in a generation (Japan, S. Korea, etc.). This is the better path than today's chaotic, dysfunctional Third World democracies which never seem to be able to get their act together and wallow in poverty for generation after generation after generation (India, Indonesia, Russia, S. Africa, Argentina, Brazil, etc.).