The Chinese people are probably misinformed. One of the things that stands out from Western (and Indian) experiments in democracy is they are noisy, boisterous, have very loud special interest groups and are appallingly bad at keeping secrets. Leaders spend a lot of time in front of huge crowds.

There simply isn't enough political chatter coming out of China to support the idea that there is a healthy democratic process at work. Although I take no position on how stable their foreign policy may or may not be.