I’m assuming that ranking has countries like China as not democratic while countries like the US as democratic. When most people in China are happy with their govt/they correctly believe the govt is working in their interest. Meanwhile the majority in America are usually not happy with their current regimes and most certainly the govt does not represent the people.
America is ranked as a flawed democracy within the EIU - just like Israel, South Korea, and Italy - which I would say is a fairly accurate take about the state of American democracy.
> When most people in China
It's hard to tell whether Chinese think one way or the other, as these kinds of polls are tightly held. That said, protests are fairly common in China, and the rate of labor unrest within China has risen dramatically compared to the past 10 years [0]
> When most people in China are happy with their govt
You don't seem to have seen the videos of people being shoved into vans when they try to exercise their right to lodge grievances about government corruption.
The difference is that people are protesting against ICE, writing op-eds openly across various forms of media and a prominent governor is trolling Federal govt's actions in public.
Good luck trying to do any of that in China. US and other democratic societies may have warts, but there is a huge gap between those systems and China.
