Michael Pillsbury’s The Hundred Year Marathon dispels this delusion. Pillsbury points out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) never intended to become more democratic. Instead, it intended to maintain power at all costs, and replace the United States as the world’s superpower.
Earlier, Michael Pillsbury, particularly known for his work with the U.S. Department of Defense, made a similar, more detailed argument. Last year Rush Doshi, formerly of the Brookings Institute, now with the Biden National Security Council, also argued that the PRC has employed multiple “strategies of displacement” against the established hegemon, the U.S. and the order established by the latter.