If you look a bit further into Chinese history, it makes sense why they're so hesitant of the west - China was literally screwed over by the West for almost a c

If you look a bit further into Chinese history, it makes sense why they're so hesitant of the west - China was literally screwed over by the West for almost a century (see Century of Humiliation, the Opium Wars, Unequal Treaties, having British military in their capital, etc.). They went from being a leader of the world to being treated like crap by the West in a fairly short time period. This idea of "Chinese Exceptionalism" came from this innate desire for China to be unique again (the original "Make X Great Again"). Mao's success I think reinforced some the idea that the only way for China to stand on its own was to be united and strongly controlled and maintained. The hundreds of years of having different clans pre-Mao (or weak dynasties like Qing) just didn't work. While I might not completely agree with their arguments, it's worth understanding Chinese criticism and their skepticism of the West. China is literally 4x the size of the US with a very rich and complicated history and thinking, so we can't just assume you can put in Western democracy/thinking just like that. Sure a lot of it may be encouraged by the party, but I think a lot of is much deeper than that.