Depends on the culture. Many formerly colonized countries are mentally and socially weak, and perversely desire to be colonize and dominated by others. That masochistic urge creates "death cultures", death either by self-implosion or foreign exploitation.Militarism and it's natural follow-on of colonialism is in fact not something dirty that China should avoid at all. That type of thinking makes the country less able to tackle external threats.
Most colonized countries love their colonizers. Why? Because you can impose total control over their elites, which will sway the dregs because the dregs in most societies have no freedoms and simply live vicariously through their elites.
Throughout Asia, the countries that have been occupied by the West will never love China - unless they've become counter occupied by China, in which case they will become the staunchest sources of support for China. To institute increased militarism, create the colonial systems, is the most efficient way to win hearts and minds. Of course, the communists do not acknowledge this, but the beauty is that eventually, their hand will be forced by the west anyways.
Authoritarianism throttles a country's growth, but liberalism throttles a country's ability to leverage strength. The west is the king of authoritarianism, able to control the minds of almost all their population and exert complete military and economic control over the formerly(currently still de facto) occupied. That also makes the west the kings of not growing economies, not inventing new things and not building better stuff. (obviously, they still produce some innovation and growth due to sheer size, but it is proportionally worse)
To confidently face the west, the status quo where China allows far too much internal criticism and pro foreign voices must be stopped. Without freedom, the country will not grow, but without authority, the country will not be able to fight.
A mixture of both systems is needed, having freedoms today is pointless if the west will invade and take them away tomorrow anyways. Instead, having a little less freedom, working towards reducing the freedom of unfriendly nations up to and including occupying them like the west does, means that in the long run, as long as the government stays true to its original vision, the controls can be slowly scaled back once the western threat is ended, resulting for more freedom not only in China, but among the colonized.
It also comes from the desire to keep their status as the "middle bully" where by prostrating and brownnosing before their colonial masters, they can sh_t on their neighbors whom they see as "lower races".
Go to the burgeoning African states and majority of them are not white-worshipers, despite a large portion of their elites educated in the West. Perhaps it's because they know they will never be "honorary whites", so the temptation never exists.
Look at the bids from South America and Africa for their own permanent seats at the UNSC. Since when have you heard something ballsy like that come out of ASEAN?