This is true, but of course ignores what happens historically when these societies open up more. They tend to get exploited.
Places like China, Vietnam etc. don't yet have institutions strong enough to withstand (Western) meddling. So they can either be stable and relatively prosperous, or (in their mind), poor and open.
If you go by example of India, China seems preferable.
The sad part is that in the West, instead of offering a good counterexample, we're increasingly 'inspired' i.e. Assange, Snowden, chat control etc. while lacking even the historical justification for doing so and having worse infrastructure.
Yeah, that's what dictators explain, different cultural references . Guess what, there are several countries that revert their democratic processes, because of china tech and their success. This is a real path towards absolutely crazy people like putin with unlimited power due to ai.
For what is worth, I don't think Russia is on the same economic success path as China, so I don't think the argument there is remotely convincing. I am not saying it's the right argument, I am saying the argument might work on a large chunk of the population if their standard of living is better than it was in colonial times.