Not really. Japanese / SKorea success in tech are from massive conglomerates that function effectively the same as Chinese SEOs, see Chaebol, Zaibatsu. These are legacies of their authoritarian history. Free speech doesn't matter when building electronics or military hardware. It won't matter for semiconductors or turbojets. Japan / SKorea both have their indigenous nex-gen fighter programs, F-X2/3 for Japan, KAI KFX for Korea. China's J-20 that started a few years earlier is far more mature. Japan had help from US aviation and realized their indigenous capabilities were insufficient. J20 also ahead of Russian gen5, Su57 in most technical categories except power plant. Pattern is to copy 1 or 2 generations to learn and then indigenize. Maybe free speech matters for commercial cultural products, but the media products China exports like video games would suggest no.
China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously. Chinese money talks, but military hardware gatekeeps whether that conversation to happen in the first place. Which matters more and more now that China containment is official US policy. The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. Clinton sent two. I use to be a Xi doubter, but it's hard to argue he's not doing an incredible job.
China under Xi is going in the right direction for global dominance for the simple reason that he's one of the first leader since Mao to take military modernization seriously. Chinese money talks, but military hardware gatekeeps whether that conversation to happen in the first place. Which matters more and more now that China containment is official US policy. The alternative to Xi was Bo Xilai who would never have reformed the corrupt and ineffective military old guard. Now China has a massively expanding Navy with growing blue water capabilities, SCS bases, space infrastructure and enough indigenous weapons that even belligerent US under Pompeo doesn't have the guts to sail carrier through the Taiwan strait anymore. Clinton sent two. I use to be a Xi doubter, but it's hard to argue he's not doing an incredible job.