[ypzhang2]

Anecdotally, western democracy was seen as a means to an end for many “common folk Chinese”. The end is prosperity. Now that the prosperity gap has drastically closed (also there are more clear paths to prosperity), the desire has also dissipated. China has also seen a China-like society in Singapore achieve a very strong economic and social outcome with authoritarian government, so western style democracies aren’t the only “role model” so to speak anymore

[starfallg]

I don't think Singaporean politics is particularly well regarded within China. In fact, it reflects the same issues as with the CCP and its authoritarian system. The Singapore system is seen as a necessary evil given the geopolitics of the region and the racial makeup of the city-state. The CCP is seen as a necessary evil to propel China into advanced economy status. This is just how things are.

[dirtyid]

Singaporean political academies trained 50K CCP cadres until recently. Their system is/was highly well regarded and emulated, but within the last decade CCP has evolved/developed beyond the Singaporean methods designed for small fish geopolitics. LKI was the preeminant statesmen that every CCP leader visited/consulted with personally, outside of state-to-state dialogue. I think Trumps America, drama HK in has turned more and more away from representative democracy. Western system in general started losing luster post 2007 GFC. Whatever model PRC will pursue in future, it's not going to look towards "declining west" until west sorts out it's issues.