The thing is that you almost need strong authoritarian control to transition society from agrarian to industrial state. You don't achieve that with globalization and open markets, but instead you nurture and develop your industry (which of course developed democratic countries find uncompetitive and undemocratic). Once you get your industry going, you can start opening up both markets and society.

I don't think that's at all accurate. Most of the early countries to make that transition had relatively high levels of economic freedom.