The lesson of the "Chinese system" is that the average guy will happily support an arguably "oppressive, brutal, antidemocratic, and ... corrupt" government if it's the one option that keeps delivering continued economic growth and development-- there's very little use for being properly "democratic" when you lack the other prerequisites of strong growth. (To be sure, these do include things like a robust civil society, but 'civil society' can take many forms - and Chinese society isn't exactly known for its lack of guanxi!) Authoritarian governments are a dime a dozen outside the developed West (and this is with many of them being outwardly democratic), so there's no way that this is the 'key issue' that so many fans of 'Western values' want it to be. Like it or not, the Chinese leadership is definitely doing something right.