According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index China is on place 145 from

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index China is on place 145 from 167 countries. About the first 100 countries are all democratic. Everything below 100 is a dictatorship. And since mainland China was never a democracy it can be said that China is more than 2000 years behind the West in democratic development.