Technically, China was a democracy for a brief period after the Xinhai Revolution at the start of the 20th century. Democracy was also one of the major themes

Technically, China was a democracy for a brief period after the Xinhai Revolution at the start of the 20th century. Democracy was also one of the major themes of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. In these decades, China was busy importing Western ideas because they believed that was the key to rejuvenate China. The Communist Party eventually won power in China, but it was only following the Korean War that all hope was lost that China could transition to a democracy. Still, the spectre of democracy remains. The Chinese Communist Party still talks about democracy positively sometimes and the Chinese constitution describes China as a democracy. They do this partly by ignoring what democracy means (the constitution also guarantees "freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration"), and partly by redefining what democracy means. It's Western-style democracy that the CCP treats as an unambiguously bad and dangerous idea.