HRW is a pro-western think tank that frequently cites CIA cutouts like Radio Free Asia. Looking at this document, for example, you can see that it frames public ownership of news media as inherently bad and capitalist news as inherently good. It also frames China as anti-democratic, when it is widely seen by its own citizens to be very democratic:

Overall, you're just grabbing an anti-communist tool of western governments as a cudgel to bash China. Are there real problems in China? Yes. Is it a "horrible country?" No, far from it, and it's far better than western imperialist countries that export genocide and plunder the global south.

The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy.

The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people's democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China's success.

I highly recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.