Americans' claim they live in democracy. Chinese say the same thing. To you China might not be a democracy; to somebody else US - where corporations literally just buy their own congressman - isn't a democracy either.
People in the USA vote regularly to choose their leader, while people in China do not. Hence, by definition, USA are a democracy and China is not.
Sure, the last two elections were a confirmation that democracy is not perfect (with millions of idiots voting Trump in 2016 and still millions of freaking idiots voting Trump in 2020), but it is the best we have got so far.
People in USA can’t vote to choose their leader at all - they can only choose their representatives, who then vote for the leader. That’s almost exactly how it works in China.
