It's been an article of faith for a long time that prosperity requires democracy, and democracy brings prosperity.
It seemed reasonable during the Cold War, when the First World was democratic and prosperous, and the Second World was authoritarian and much less prosperous. But now we're seeing that maybe that was just a coincidence, or perhaps democracy helps but isn't required.
I do wonder if China's prosperity will be more fragile. If the Chinese Communist Party turns more ideological, or another Mao-like figure shows up, it could all come tumbling down.
On the other hand, democracy is starting to look a little more fragile these days as well.
I do not think China would be so successful if not for the Democracy elsewhere in the world.
It is not Chinese citizens, with Chinese money, buying Chinese goods and supporting the Chinese economy. It is Americans and Europeans outsourcing manufacturing to China of American and European designs and selling mostly to Americans and Europeans with China taking a cut because they can do it cheaper than locally sourced manufacturing.
It really isn't that simple, of course every country has some R&D, some manufacturing and some purchasing. etc... But Expensive goods of almost any kind are American or European, if they are bought or sold. Even commodity goods aren't all made in China.
Their whole country is filling gaps that Western businesses leave behind. That isn't exactly "working", but it is clearly better than it used to be. If their citizens ever get freedom to run businesses like the west has, like they used to have in Taiwan, then China would be the economic superpower instead of just a major economic power. I don't think they can have that without democracy or something equally empowering.
How large, populous, and developed do they have to be to qualify? It's hard to answer that without setting some boundaries first. China still has lots of really poor people and undeveloped areas, but a huge portion of the country is developed more or less to first world standards, so China would qualify if you can accept some inconsistency.
Otherwise, Saudi Arabia? 30+ million people, high per-capita GDP, fairly high Human Development Index, totally non-democratic.
Russia might be a marginal example, with a moderately high HDI and a government at least pretends to be democratic.
I think Germany is a pretty good example if we're allowed to look at the past rather than just the present.
China is a developing country. If "a huge portion of the country is developed to first world standards" then 50% of developing countries would suddenly be classified as developed. One of the criteria for being a developed country is uniformity of development.
Saudi Arabia basically sells gold that springs out of the ground. Let's see how they fare when the price of their "gold" goes down to 1/100th.
Russia is not a developed country, it's a developing country.
And about Germany, we're talking about past 1945. Otherwise any comparison is useless since a relatively poor country in 2017 is richer than quite a few developed countries pre 1945 - progress does that to things :)
It seemed reasonable during the Cold War, when the First World was democratic and prosperous, and the Second World was authoritarian and much less prosperous. But now we're seeing that maybe that was just a coincidence, or perhaps democracy helps but isn't required.
I do wonder if China's prosperity will be more fragile. If the Chinese Communist Party turns more ideological, or another Mao-like figure shows up, it could all come tumbling down.
On the other hand, democracy is starting to look a little more fragile these days as well.