I used to think the same thing at your age.

Tack on another twenty years of watching and you'll start to see the progress. It's not FAST progress, but it's there.

Indeed, the very fact that it isn't fast is probably healthier. Fast progress doesn't last. Small steps, slow progress - that becomes culture which becomes the default expectation and sticks.

As you so correctly point out, China has been an autocracy of various sorts since before Christ. The Maoists didn't really change that, just substituted one group of "Mandarins" for another and chose to dress less snazzy.

The internet and overseas education is what will change China. That and the influence of Hong Kong which is disproportionate.

It'll come and if it comes more slowly, hopefully it'll stick. But trying to club the Chinese into change won't work - they're a thousands of years old culture that has never changed quickly. The have to do it themselves.