Some 83 percent of the citizens of Communist China view the country as democratic — though it is a one-party state that lacks a free press, independent labor unions, and the free exercise of religion. That’s the finding of the annual Democracy Perception Index, published by a center-right free-market think tank in Denmark.

While Chinese respondents represented to pollsters that their own country was a true democracy, a two-thirds majority held a negative perception of America, the European Union, and the United Nations. 

The index is produced by the Alliance for Democracies Foundation annually to measure sentiments regarding democracy, foreign policy, and the economy in countries across the world. Its findings for 2022 cover 57 countries. Globally, 84 percent of the 57,000 respondents felt that democracy was important, while just 56 percent felt that their home nation was democratic.

The Alliance for Democracies Foundation website suggests that one of the reasons the institution was formed is a finding by the Economist Intelligence Unit that only 4.5 percent of the planet resides in a full democracy. One of the Alliance’s programs focuses on the problem of election integrity.

The Communist Chinese ambassador to Cuba, Ma Hui, took to Twitter to call the results on China’s democratic sentiments “interesting.” When pressured by another user over his comment, Mr. Hui replied by saying, “No one or no country has the monopoly of the definition of democracy. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people should be both an ideal and reality.” 

The report, which listed 1,000 Chinese citizen respondents, found that 83 percent of them termed their country to be democratic, with 72 percent of Chinese respondents saying the country had the correct amount of democracy. 

Communist China has been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party since 1949 and is currently under the rule of Xi Jinping indefinitely. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “The CCP has held a monopoly on power since the Mao Zedong led party defeated nationalist rivals and founded the People’s Republic in 1949.”

This is not the first time an official of the CCP has claimed the country is democratic. As president, Mr. Xi has said China is “a true democracy that works.”

While the Chinese said their country was a democracy, they held less than favorable views of the West and its institutions. Only 11 percent of Chinese respondents held a positive view of America, in comparison to 59 percent who held a favorable view of Russia. 

The European Union and the United Nations also were not favored highly by Chinese respondents, with 21 percent holding a positive perception of the EU and the UN receiving 40 percent approval. 

One area where the Chinese approved of the West was regarding support for Ukraine, with 66 percent saying it was doing enough to support Ukraine in its war. 

Regardless of the views of Chinese respondents, Communist China’s approval rating in the rest of the world has decreased in recent years, to 46 percent in this latest Index.