Certainly, in practice we can fail to abide by our principles. But would you say that China fails overall to abide by its Confucian or otherwise collectivistic values? I see a lot of consistency and rigor in those applications. The "meritocratic" applications may come across as pragmatic (as in the need for draconian policies to manage such a large population, via the law of oligarchy or the centralization of power). But the pragmatism is consistent with the Confucian insistence on social harmony via the tailoring of the environment to shape individual growth.