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A 'dictatorship of the proletariat' has elements of democracy, but it is explicitly not the same as a liberal democracy (nor is it really the same as a straight-out dictatorship). It's possible that some people prefer the Trotsky version of socialist states (one where multiple socialist parties might compete for power), but the ML single-party version is still very much within marxist theory.
The Chinese political system is democratic, just not in the same ways a western democracy might be. Western liberals seem to either not know (?) how the Chinese system works, or miss-understand what 'democracy' means as it pertains to Marx's 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Either way, @explodicle@sh.itjust.works seems to be operating under a liberal-democratic understanding of democracy, but that's really not a given in marxist theory.
Then: it's obviously not democratic, that's why they call it a dictatorship
Now: well it's just not democratic in a way you liberals would understand
There's a reason why Marx coined a term referencing 'dictatorship' that included elements like 'direct democracy'. He sought to exclude the capital class entirely from it, and so referred to it as dictatorship 'of the working class'. Marx specifically saw liberal democracy as one designed for the borurgeoisie, and so using that as a basis of comparison for a socialist project is counter-productive
When liberals accuse China of being a 'dictatorship', they're pointing to the parts of China's democracy that differ from western democracy that specifically have to do with the inclusion of the capital class. Even a single-party state can be of the working-class and have direct-democracy, as is China's.
You're free to disapprove of China's system of government (I have scruples about it myself), you simply can't reasonably argue they are a dictatorship by any modern standards(at least, in no other way than in Marx's own use of the term).
Far from 'approving' of their system of governance, though, their state-controlled economy is definitionally socialist.