I would seek out information on what the PRC leadership actually thinks and does. What you find in the media is extremely misleading when it comes to the modern Chinese Communist Party (contrary to popular belief it has undergone considerable political reform as well as economic reform). Indeed, the PRC actually does already roll out policy in an experimental way before making it widespread. I recommend reading Mark Leonard's What Does China Think? for a short, popular introduction. David Shambaugh's China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation is a scholarly account that gives an idea of what's going on in China's many think tanks.

Note: I'm not condoning the Chinese Communist Party's actions or recommending their political system. It's just one area where I've done some research and discovered the truth is very, very far from what's ordinarily presented. The PRC leadership have, as far as I can tell, at least been trying to build a meritocratic political system in which there are no general elections but a great deal of experimentation in ways to elicit and respond to feedback from the citizenship. Whether they've succeeded or not is another matter. At the very least they've managed to create a system where power is exchanged peacefully and the leadership has a relatively high level of education.