[WhatIsDukkha]

China is an interesting case of thousands of years of relatively modern social order with high coercion in many ways.

However, it's also a society that maintained high levels of family and clan based organization which counterbalance the atomization and individuality that you see in modern "Washington Consensus" societies.

I highly recommend "The Search for Modern China" if you are truly interested in thinking about these things in context. It's very pleasing and readable.

Modern China isn't as straightforwardly authoritarian as you might want to compare against.

North Korea might be a better choice.