I hear you yeah. I think that in any system (esp hierarchical ones of course) you will have plenty of ambitious people trying to rise within it and unfortunately that will include a lot of selfish people. (A person can be ambitious without being a selfish sociopath obviously but selfishness can be very conducive to ambition). It's partly why I'll never completely shed my anarchist roots.

But we now have a pretty good set of examples as to which systems are more able to recognize and correct these problems as they arise. And the example you use is a perfect one as to show why China's is superior in that sense. That's absolutely not to say it's anywhere near perfect.