I guess it depends on whether one thinks that democracy and freedom are good things as such. They are not necessarily universal values, even if many in the West tend to think so.
Looking at China's past decade or so... I'm getting the sense that they're going to be on the usual authoritarian trajectory of countries that decide the democracy isn't for them. Initially it can work better, because democracies are always messy, especially superficially messy in the ways that elites find oh-so-distasteful. But the thing is, while democracies are always about the same level of messy, the authoritarian regimes build up a lot of stress in the system which they hide in various places until they can hide no more, and one day the whole thing simultaneously explodes and implodes and is, on the whole, a great deal more messy than the ever-so-distasteful democracy would have been. Is the messiness of democracy the fault of the governance mechanism, or a reflection of the underlying messiness that exists regardless?
Is democracy good as such? That's a question for personal values. Would democracy be better for China in the next, say, 20 years than its current path? Probably, by any metric you choose. For all of its disadvantages on a day-to-day basis, in a 21st century world democracy really does have some significant long-term advantages, regardless of your local ideology, as long as you like, say, being alive, not fighting civil wars, that sort of thing.
Also, I live in Taiwan, so with a data point of 1, I'm pretty sure freedom and democracy are a really good match for Chinese culture (probably a better match than American culture? hard to say). It works well here. But that's just my two cents. [edit: it sure as hell works better than the white terror]
Would you care to elaborate on your point that "freedom and democracy are a really good match for Chinese culture"? I ask because that directly contradicts one of the points that the CCP (probably Self-servingly) hammers on. It would nice to get other perspectives on that.
It is an on-the-ground feeling. There is a calm chaos here that reflects the "there are basic rules, but beyond that, everybody carves out a slice of how they think they can be useful" spirit WAY better than America (where everything is pre-apportioned, indoors, with permits, etc.).
I also feel that intergenerational households and stronger community ties lead to better group decision making, which America is having some trouble with. People here have actual hometowns. They care about their local community in a way I've literally not seen a single time in America. Putting aside individual elections or politicians, this helps build a sense of public service, not just horsetrading elections (your local DA isn't setting policy on anything in their party platform, but people in America still want party info so they can try and trade for a policy they want).
All of this is a guess, obviously, and I suppose lots of places are like Taipei.
It's also worth pointing out that the KMT probably made similar statements, about how virtuous martial law was, and how the people didn't want the changes, and western allies couldn't possibly get what they wanted without oppression. Turns out they were wrong. People with power like power, that's true every single square meter of the globe.