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There are 100M citizens in the party, which is a small percentage of the population.

That's less than 10% of the population, and still everybody can only join under one party program. That's not democracy.

The system is, in fact, democratic,

No it isn't, you claiming that only shows you don't understand what democracy is.

The size of the party in China is small,

That is mostly irrelevant, it's the lack of political freedom that matters. Here we have 12 parties in parliament, no less than 2 of them are new parties, that sprung from older parties because they wanted to change the political agenda. Such an option does not in any way exist in China.

they have to prevent disruption of the revolutionary government by outside forces.

No they don't, and they already don't allow anyone to express such opinions anywhere else, it's even easier to prevent it within the party. That point is pure bullshit. It's the authoritarian paranoia that fears change, even if a majority of people want it. But here the CCP fear even the MENTION of change!! The only thing worse is autocracy, where a single individual holds all power.

And as it turns out, the party is incredibly responsive to the people.

But still people are not allowed to ask for democracy.

This isn’t really true in one-party systems. One-party systems have factions and the factions all fight for their program within the party.

The same is true when you have 12 parties, the difference is that in CCP you have to stay within what is allowed under one party program. In a democracy you can do the same but within many different party programs that span a wider spectrum, where in an authoritarian country many of them would be illegal.

The US outlawed the communist party, blacklisted every communist sympathizer

I already mentioned that USA is a deeply flawed democracy, that has failed to improve their democracy. In Scandinavian countries the Communist party is absolutely 100% allowed and legal. But In Denmark when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Danish Communist Party went bankrupt because support from the Soviet Union dried up. And there was so little interest that the communist party doesn't exist here anymore. We do however have a number of left wing parties that are based on social democracy. Denmark has one of the highest democracy ratings in the world, so when arguing on how democracy works, you should use a functioning democracy as example and not the very flawed democracy of USA.

That would never happen in the US because the US would brutally put such protests down very quickly.

In a democracy demonstrators don't generally throw bombs at police, because the demonstrations are allowed, and their political viewpoints are allowed, and police does not try to arrest peaceful protestors.

however, we given orders to disengage when things got too violent.

Nice to hear there is some humanism, it didn't go so well at Tiananmen Square square in 1989.
But yes I've been aware for years that the Chinese "thought police" is not as ruthless as it once was. For instance an Internet blogger criticizing the system is not even necessarily imprisoned, but instead the blog can be taken over by authorities, and the content switched to state propaganda. A way more humane approach that is still efficient.
Progress has been made, but silencing opposition is not democracy.

launching point for Western terrorism

Everything you write about Hong Kong sounds like propaganda. But the part about Western Terrorism is weird. There is no reason to believe terrorism would somehow be carried over from the west to China. If a person from Hong Kong perform a terrorist act in China, that is 100% a case of Chinese terrorism.

But these are two very different experiences. China is under siege, being surrounded by nuclear military bases.

Nukes can be intercontinental, so geography is not so relevant. And China is surrounded by Russia, Kazakhstan, India and a bunch of smaller countries, none of those countries would ever stand a chance against China in a war. India and Russia have nukes, but why would China be afraid of being attacked by them?
The idea that China is under siege is exactly what a totalitarian regime would claim before invading another country, just like Putin did before invading Ukraine.
Are you saying China is planning an invasion?

the powers that be in the US do not listen to the people at all, and consistently have terrible approval ratings, whereas the Chinese government is constantly working on their process of listening to and addressing the needs of the people.

As I've mentioned already, USA is a very flawed democracy, and some of the dissatisfaction is due to this, they have options, but no good options.
In China however, the people don't have an alternative political party with an alternative offer to compare the Chinese government to. And considering the development has been generally good for quality of life in China, it is understandable that the majority of Chinese population is pretty happy with how things are going.
I recently watched a Norwegian youtuber called Bjørn Nyland who test drives electric cars, and who went to China, to try some of the new Chinese electric cars. And he filmed freely in China (Shenzhen), something that would not have been possible just a few years ago. But it's also amazing to see how modern Shenzhen is, and the number of cool eating places is insane. Very clearly the places he visited people had very high living standard. Probably a good bit above average for China, but goddam it looked nice.
I can understand why people in China think things are generally good, and are happy with their government, in some ways they have done an extremely good job.

whereas in the US Indian reservations are horrible places

It's funny how you continue to use USA as an example, you should be aware that USA is not respected in this regard in Europe. USA is in many ways worse than China.
As a democracy they are a joke that we call only one party better than China. They have a horrible history of slavery, and the racism continue to be high despite being a multicultural society for 2 centuries! They don't have healthcare for all, like every other democracy, and they don't have paid education.
You are not really making much of a point by pointing out that USA sucks too.
BUT!! Think about this, among one party countries, China stands as a shiny beacon above the rest. Whereas USA as a democracy is rock bottom in almost every aspect, except they have a huge economy.
USA is about to fall into one party authoritarianism, What do you think the chances are? Will the people be better off with just one party?

It sounds like you’re saying Totalitarian == Fascism == Authoritarian

They have traits in common, Totalitarian is dictatorship by one ruler, Authoritarian is centralized rule that does not allow political opposition much like China.
One of the main aspects of fascism is that it is always authoritarian or totalitarian. So being authoritarian means being similar to fascism in some of their main aspects.
But == usually means identical, and I never claimed that. Just that China being having an authoritarian government, means it shares significant similarities with fascism.

America is more authoritarian than China

By definition democracy is supposed to be the opposite of authoritarian, but most definitely USA is the most authoritarian and also most flawed democracy that exist.

it imprisons more of its people,

USA is the most unjust democracy in the world,

it (USA) uses violence against the entire world,

Yes even Americans are beginning to realize that. Unfortunately China is beginning to behave a lot like USA, which I don't really blame them for, especially the 2nd term of Trump has been awful for relations between China and USA, but I'm afraid it has also put a strain on relations between China and EU. I find the Nexperia debacle particularly embarrassing for EU. Had it been bought by a company from any other country, there wouldn't have been a problem. But because it was China, and Trump somehow thinks it his job to make as much pain as possible for China, USA pressured EU and Netherlands to prevent China access to a company they bought fair and square under EU regulation!? Apparently the situation is being resolved, but here should never have been a "situation".

China, on the other hand, does not allow the president to issue unilateral executive orders

Good. 👍 That may explain why China seems to generally behave more balanced and intelligently than USA.

China is not somehow obviously evil compared to the West.

I never claimed that, I have great respect for what China has achieved in many ways, China seems to respect the sovereignty of other countries, but for some reason Xi is hellbent that Taiwan must be reunited with mainland China. Why not accept that Taiwan is now a different country from China? And try to work together, China is the most obvious major economic partner for Taiwan anyway.look at Russia trying to "reunite" Ukraine, it has made life hell for millions of people. With no benefits for either side. The soviet union was legally dissolved in 1991, why not accept that? And in the same way, why can't China accept that for all practical purposes Taiwan is an independent country now?

Interesting debate, although I disagree at times, you put forward a reasonably balanced argument IMO.
Now I'm out of space too. 😋
And it's 02:30 here now, so I say goodnight. 🥱 💤