The claim that democracy and "Western values" would not work well in China due to cultural reasons is weakened by the fact that it seems to be doing fine in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, which have very similar cultural backgrounds.
I am not familiar with a millenia-old tradition of directly paying cash to magistrate and officials in either Korea or Japan. Taiwan native population makes a small portion of the contemporary population: the island occupants are mostly descendants from expatriate Chinese democrats (who rejected that tradition and many others). All are also countries that have started democratic transition several decades before China (and that argument of three decades to transition is heard a lot more than the presumed contempt OC mention). That discussion should certainly include a discussion on rural vs. coastal China too -- but that would be further beyond my depth.
More importantly, my point was that "claim" is very far from a single, consistent argument about how 'Asia' works (I do not think that 'Asia' is really a consistent entity). It's more a convenient accretion of reaction to local experiences, often negatives. Western values work fine say, on Pacific islands that have had an incredibly different culture.
