Indeed, socio-economic prosperity establishes a wonderful trigger mechanism for democratization. And affluence is even more important for the SURVIVAL of democratic regimes (see Paul Collier on this) After the Arab Spring, I too had my eyes on China, waiting for some action there. But political scientists quickly hailed with bad news: Apparently, China had developed a wonderfully DELIBERATIVE system of governance! Except that it's not the liberal, Habermasian type that the West would wish for. It's a highly regimented, dare I say, authoritarian form of deliberation channelled through the long tentacles of the Chinese Communist Party. So there you have it... With 7-8% growth and all that trade surplus, what we get is deliberative authoritarianism, instead of democratic "Springs" in China...