Reads like the China Daily opinion pieces.

A newspaper that doesn't allow contrary opinions. There's never been a piece discussing the merits and problems with alternate modes of government for China.
When Liu Xiaobo drafted such a document he was put in jail for suggesting the separation of powers, and the separation of the military from the CCP.

The author states:

"Beijing has conformed to the international norms and practices largely defined by US world power. It is a market economy, a member of the WTO and a major participant in American-style global economics."

Other than WTO membership, this is all false.

The Chinese economy is dominated by state owned enterprises. The recent stimulus made this worse. The bulk of Chinese GDP is from Chinese-Government owned corporations.
It's no market economy.
Market economies include investment. Granted, regarding core services such as electricity there's an argument for restricting foreign investment, but the CCP doesn't allow foreign investment in many areas such as media or infrastructure.
Nor can citizens buy land, merely leases. They can't even move to the area they desire without the 'hukou' form of city citizenship (at least, not if they want the right to things such as education).

As for global economic participation, consider the wikileaks cables regarding Chinese investment in Africa. China's UN participation has remained obstructive whenever any kind of resource operation they have in the third world becomes threatened. This isn't to say the US doesn't do some dirty deeds. But in China, private industry is the government. So to China, the UN is a tool for their state owned companies. Unlike the US there is no public pressure regarding policies. That gives the CCP and by extension its state owned companies free rein and encourages them to be ruthless.

I'd prefer brutal realism which leads to the realization that for all its faults, at least the US allows domestic criticism of their own government, and permits a critical media and public. This is the lens through which you can view a government's tolerance for opposition.

The 'brutal reality' is that China has none.

Thank you, TurnRightThenLeft, I think you nailed it :)

While Liu Xiao Bo languishes (there's a euphemism!) in jail for the next eleven years, and Assange seems to be getting a pretty fair hearing and walking the streets, one wonders if anybody on the Left still has their priorities right.

Never mind, we have to keep faith with the notion that justice will out, eventually: this is surely what drives Liu Xiao Bo, and Aung San Suu Kyi. The people will win the freedoms that so many take for granted, we must believe that.

Joe