Dictatorships look strong from the outside, but are weak inside. What looks like a monolith is in fact multiple tribes seeking a position closer to the throne.

The most brutal few that make it to the top have to spend much of their energy to get there or defend their position. That is not saying they don't have any ideologies, but leadership in these systems rewards obedience and tribute paying first of all. So you get a system that optimizes optics for a hierarchy of overlords.

Contrast that with the chaotic looking processes that happens within free democratic societies. Leadership has a much broader accountability, faces scrutiny from all sides, has to tolerate opposition, are bound to laws and have term limits. This system, with all buts and ifs, allows societies to innovate, learn, adapt and prosper.

Chinese leadership should thank the late Kissinger for the enormous transfer of wealth, intellectual properties, and highly favorable trading conditions from the West. It is still very dependent on it for its economics. Totalitarian states will in the long run not be able to compete with free states.

The collapse of the Soviet Union was inevitable, but that stuff can take decades.