The only thing to think about; the West wish to spread democracy, China wants to kill it.
No government is perfect, but a democratic process allows for openness and criticism.
An open process allows for inspection and rectification if things get out of hand without the fear of retribution so long as lawful.
Democratic laws are different from autocratic laws.
Yes, that's what you were taught in high school. But America doesn't want to spread democracy as much as it wants to prevent the spread of governments that don't view capitalism central to their economy. Ask Chile or Iran or Vietnam or Cuba or Nicaragua, or most Central American nations how they feel about their democratic aspirations trampled by US corporations and US governments at different times of the 20th century. You're probably ok with that because, well, you were told that America was fighting communism, even if the population of these countries voted democratically for socialism. The fools just didn't know what they really wanted...
China fought a fratricide war for communism against entrenched powerful capitalist lords and won. While the Chinese have never known electoral democracy, they nonetheless are highly supportive of their government if you could believe it. Because communism, not capitalism, has raised the standard of living of the greatest population number than any other country in world's history, in 30 years! Reality is that China is not a communist country, it's a dictatorship with a hybrid social capitalist economic system. Ultimately it suits its population, with all of its achievements and flaws. But China doesn't give 2 fucs about preventing democracy. It cares that no one tells them what they can do about their country, which includes Hong Kong (for sure) and, they say, Taiwan, which may be the start of a small or big war with many who don't see it that way.
Chinese tend to be culturally rigid people. Work, money, family are the pillars of that culture today. They are very hierarchical and criticism only goes downwards. If you want to criticize, you have to climb the ladder and shout from above.
You or I may not like their ways, but it's theirs and they never attempted to force it on us like we westerners have tried to force our ways on them for centuries. The future will require the western world not to let them bully us, but we also need to respect them. I'm not sure which is going to be the harder.