It's hard to say which system is better: US democracy or Chinese-characteristic socialism. To be honest, US democracy has slipped into Oligarchy since 2000s when US politics was serving only to a small special interest groups instead of the public. Just look at 911 and multiple middle eastern wars initiated by US. It was the great of many examples of US politics serving only for small special interest groups. After 2016 when Trump (Putin’s loyalist) was elected, US politics was worsened and was completely hijacked by foreign powers and has lost its democracy function. US politics was no longer following American people’s opinions, but to manipulate public opinion by creating all sorts of social and international crisis. Because in US, politicians can easily obtain big foreign nation’s donation and influences to get elected, instead of relying on the grassroot donation in traditional US democracy previously. This caused a dramatic shift in power dynamics and causing US politics to serve foreign nation and to harm its own interest. This exposed the vulnerability of the US democracy + capitalism, that is, US democracy + capitalism was vulnerable to be hijacked by rogue foreign powers.
Chinese-characteristic socialism, how could I put it. I think it is a mix of capitalism + some socialism. And it’s trending toward left-wing capitalism away from socialism. I believe CCP hasn’t figured out a way to completely exit the socialism but knows only capitalism can save the party. From the current world politics, it seems a left-wing leaning capitalism will provide more prosperity and social justice to its people (like what CCP is doing). However, the undemocratic practice makes the system relies heavily on few top leaders. And this make the chance of mistakes increased exponentially. If Wang, Yi and the CCP top leaders conduct a MuJi-style political reform, that’s the only way out for CCP. In that case, CCP can still preserve something that’s import to them but incorporate transparency and democratic practices and at the same time, promoting left-leaning capitalism and market-driven economy. However, the recent public moves by CCP also indicated that it's not resistent to Russian influence and is likely hijacked by Putin.
