Can China get rid of its authoritarian tradition ?

[Maciamo]

Here is food for thoughts. This is an abstract from Rob Gifford's new book China Road (UK version), which I am devouring now.

In 230 BC, he [Qin Shihuang] was the ruler of just one of seven states that existed in Northern China, states that had themselves been formed from dozens of smaller ones. China as we know it today had never been unified, and in fact the period from 403 BC until Qin's unification, in 221 BC, was known as the Warring States period. His unification is still hailed by the Communist Party.
I am not convinced it was such a wonderful event, though. Qin's unification is the first reason, the political reason, why China's system never developed the checks and balances that eventually emerged in Europe.
[...]
But Qin Shihuang (pronounced chin shuh-hwahng) had set a very important precedent, which has survived to this day: that China should be united. It has fallen apart many times between then and now, but each time, someone has said, 'China must be reunified', and set about doing so. Chairman Mao was just the most recent in a long line of reunifiers, and if Emperor Qin were to return to China today, he would recognise the mode of government used by the Communist Party.
I have to say I find this idea rather scary, that two thousand years of history might have done nothing to change the political system of a country. Imagine a Europe today where the Roman Empire had never fallen, that still covered an area from England to North Africa, and the Middle East and was run by one man based in Rome, backed by a large army. There you have, roughly, ancient and modern China. The fact that this set-up has not changed, or been able to change, in two thousand years must also have huge implications for the question, Can China ever change its political system ?
The Roman analogy is an apt one. The tendency is to think of contemporary China in terms of the United States, because of the similarity in geographical size. Actually, to understand China today, the best comparison by far is Roman Europe two thousand years ago: lots of people with different languages and dialects, different customs, different artistic styles, even different cuisines, all with a shared heritage, but ultimately held together by force. It makes no more sense to say that you're going out for for a Chinese meal than to say that you are going out for a European one.

So, what do you think ? Can China get rid of this one thing that even the Communist kept from the old system, an authoritarian state that keep vastly different peoples together by force ? Is it a good thing ? Wouldn't China benefit from a federal system, or even to be split in several countries within a common market like the EU ? Do Chinese people need authority and forced uniformity to function well ?