i agree with you, china's government has wide-reaching control over its population which certainly played a role in how it mobilized its workforce to begin economic growth. that being said, id argue that this level of authoritarianism was and is the norm in china. simply look at chinese political philosophy since the dawn of history and even the administration of modern chinese dynasties, namely the qing. chinese philosophers and teachers did not write for the intellectual class, they wrote and advised kings and administrators on how to best govern the kingdoms they often ruled with an iron fist. the question in china has never been "how should we mobilize and organize our population that they might be subservient". rather, it has been "how should we most effectively utilize the subservient masses." even during periods where china was ruled by foreign regimes such as the yuan and qing dynasties, political oppression against the vast majority by a miniscule minority was enforced for centuries. look at the queue or pigtail laws of the qing dynasty. even in the feudal era, such edicts were carried out on a massive scale with strict obedience. to say that the maoist era was critical in establishing the authoritarianism seen today in modern china is a result of ignoring the entirety of chinese history.
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