I'm not a democracy absolutist. It isn't the only political system that can produce the greatest good for the greatest number — my baseline, utilitarian measure — and often it doesn't achieve that. Witness the USA's most recent election and the one in 2016 for example.
Witness, for that matter, the 'democracy' in Russia, which was subverted by Putin and his cabal into a thin veneer of democracy over a cult of personality and the concentration of power in Putin's hands.
Regarding China, having read broadly on it, studied Mandarin, worked with Chinese nationals closely for a couple of years in Singapore and tracked its progress for the past decades statistically, I can say it does work toward that utilitarian baseline.
It's brought 850 million of its citizens out of poverty and into a place where they have vastly more security of food and shelter, as well as vastly more educational and economic advancement opportunities. It's built a modern state that's heavily electrified, with more passenger kilometers domestically by high speed electric train than aircraft.
While it still has Communist in the title, it's actually quite different than any communism elsewhere. No attempt globally actually did progress beyond the proletariat revolution and no 'full communism' with its withered state every existed, and it's impossible to see that occurring. It was always a utopian fantasy in which human nature would suddenly change.
The Chinese system of economics and government is actually strongly market based, with Confucian paternalistic oversight and guidance. It's strongly technocratic, with an emphasis on highly educated professional strategists and policy makers working toward the most effective way to do the most productive things, attempting to do both what they consider the right thing, but also to do it well.
And it has elements of democracy, although not how we consider it. The Party spreads down to the smallest villages and information flows in both directions. There are factions within the Party, just as there are parties in western democracies, and there are factions with the Party just as there are factions within western big tent parties like the Democrats. They argue, they present their evidence, they leverage the political will of the people with factions with more 'grass roots' support generally getting more power at the top and every five years they go through a process of rejuggling all of that.
And in China governments rule at the will of the people, just as in the west, they just call it 'having the mandate of heaven'. All that means is that emperors or Xi with his various titles will lose power if they don't keep the majority of people content. They almost fell from power when they persisted in strict COVID lockdowns for a bit too long. The protests were significant, threatened the government and weren't met with bullets and tanks, but capitulation.
Do I think it's a great political system? No, but I don't think democracy as it's instituted in the UK, with its hereditary lords in Parliament and the royals is great either. I don't think the US system which is rigged to give sparsely populated rural areas far too much power, has settled into a two-party partisan, ugly divide, and enables gerrymandering like there's no tomorrow is great.
No political system is great. They are all cobbled together sets of governance that have creaky old bits from ancient history that are no longer fit for purpose but can't get gotten rid of. They all feature loopholes and levers that the influential and affluent can exploit. They all feature a lot of basic human failures.
Anyway, enough. This is a remarkably long comment, but your question was a good one. Without the arrogance of comparing myself to Twain, like him, if I'd had or taken more time, the comment would have been shorter. ;)
