Perceptions of democracy in China are higher than in the US, the UK, and France
The data is coming from the world's largest democracy perception study, published by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation (a Danish-based non-profit organisation).
That's because they're brainwashed by propaganda.
The US us not at all democratic.
Something not mentioned in the comments; In my experience Americans do not really understand democracy ; they understand voting. But ignore everything after they leave the voting booth, including how their votes are counted ( which in much of the USA are some private companies who hide their methods and do not allow recounts). Any United Nations method used to detect cheating shows massive amounts of ballot stuffing. This is ignored.
My point mentioning the above is that the United States is not a democracy by any metric, but pretends more than any other country that it is. And because the people of the USA fundamentally do not understand this, any improvement in the USA, improving quality of life, cannot be by democratic methods.
Something not mentioned in the comments; In my experience Americans do not really understand democracy ; they understand voting.
Debatable, they suck at voting.
I think the national participation level is at a maximum possible. Many understand that voting is worthless and have disengaged; and there is no way to get those people to vote without making new and transparent ballot counting methods.
The USA is very complex and there are states which have honest voting. I think, but don’t know, that participation is higher in those states as a rule.
You can choose exploiters not the system. Western democracy is this
This should be improved with adding more countries, like Russia, then comparing with other important data, like freedom of expression, to be somehow relevant to any discussion
Freedom of expression only matters when it translates into real-world action. Otherwise, it’s just a jester’s privilege, the freedom to scream into the void. In China, people enjoy genuine freedom to advance their material interests, reflected in their consistently rising standard of living and an economy that serves the majority. Meanwhile, the West claims abstract 'freedoms' while living standards crumble and working people are stripped of political power.
Damn evil CCP brainwashing their people to think that democracy is important /s
Democracies have never been anything other than disguised oligarchies. As good old Blanqui said: "What is a democrat, I pray you? It is a vague, banal word, without precise meaning, a rubber word. Everyone claims to be a democrat."
Assuming this is a reasonable representation of public opinion in the two countries (and I don't yet have reason to assume otherwise, despite the neoliberal position of the founders of the institute commissioning the survey), I now think it would be interesting to see a breakdown, country by country, of the discrepancy between public perception of democracy and independent observers' ratings of democracy in those same countries.
The perception of democracy by a country's own people is likely the strongest indicator of its health. After all, what could be more relevant than the lived experience of the populace? If people don't feel that their government serves them, then external ratings showing otherwise, however meticulously compiled, miss the core reality of the situation.
Furthermore, coming up with a truly comprehensive and universally agreed-upon rating system for democracy is itself a non-trivial challenge. Would such a rating heavily weigh material conditions, levels of inequality, access to public services, or more abstract freedoms like speech and assembly? And crucially, who decides which of these aspects are the most important or hold the greatest weight in determining a nation's democratic standing?
independent observers
How are you determining "independent"?