In China, the people directly elect local council (e.g. village or town level) representatives. Those local council members than select who among themselves to send to represent them at the next level above. This continues all the way the National People's Congress and the Standing Committee.

This sort of organizational structure is more-or-less how political parties in Germany also work; so by that logic the Green party itself would presumably be an undemocratic institution.

OK, but the CPC can control who is allowed to run in elections, right? Well, Germany banned its communist party: In Germany, any organization (and their members) that wants to abolish the liberal order, capitalism, private property and so on is subject to repression, surveillance and outright bans, and this is enshrined in the constitution. So no fundamental difference there either: In Germany the liberal institutions decide who can and cannot run, and they have decided the commies are out.

Empirically, the Chinese government enjoys way better approval rating than any Western government, Chinese people believe themselves to be living in a democracy, and the Chinese administration seems way more responsive to the actual needs of the people, what with the poverty reduction and all. How is this possible if they're so much more undemocratic than Western liberal democracies?