https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-4/mswv4_65.htm

As the other poster says, define democracy.

Exploring Communist, read: statist, notions of what democracy is as well as what Western notions of democracy is, especially in the context of multiculturalism is at least an interesting angle.

The United States is democratic by its own definition, and China isn't democratic by American definitions. China is democratic by its own definition, and the United States isn't democratic by Chinese definitions (look up bourgeois democracy).

This is a more interesting angle than simply arguing that China is a democracy by Western definitions, and if you have time, you can also consider Iran.

you aren't going to convince your prof.
the term democracy is defined in many different ways by many different people. it's an argument of semantics.
if your prof is a political scientist they are likely to be using/familiar with Polity, VDem, Freedom House, and the Democracy-Dictatorship Index. The important thing to note is that each of these essentially defines democracy as a government in which there are competitive multiparty elections. Anyone who defines democracy as requiring that will find it lacking in China and will never be convinced.
I would suggest stating that outright before explaining the ways in which the demos have say in government and control over government actions and ONLY if it is in line with your assignment.
China is not a democracy by any common definition used in western academia. Acknowledge this, and instead use it as an example of how the mainstream definitions of democracy are limited.

I know what it's not— it's not an ornament

Whether a country is a democracy or not depends on whether its people are really the masters of the country. If the people are awakened only for voting but enter a dormant period soon after, if they are given a song and dance during campaigning but have no say after the election, or if they are favored during canvassing but are left out in the cold after the election, such a democracy is not a true democracy.

see also https://redsails.org/xi-on-democracy/

https://dessalines.github.io/essays/socialism_faq.html#is-china-a-democracy

You may want to compare and contrast the USA for example. What is democracy exactly? If people got to vote once every 20 years would it still be a democracy? What about every 4 years, and then the only two candidates were Trump, who doesn't respect the process, or Harris who has never received a single vote in her life and has zero actual policies announces a short time before the election?

Or look at France right now.

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1828169812738220402

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1828361816931524980

I think it's much harder to argue that the USA is a democracy than it is for China.

China Footprint: How democratic centralism works

What is democracy in China?

Is China a democracy? w/ Carlos Martinez

This is part of a 3 part episode on China. I haven't read Carlos's book, The East is Still Red - Chinese Socialism in the 21st Century, but check it out here.

You can take a page outta this...

https://medium.com/@neoflorian/how-china-maintains-working-class-rule-highlighting-the-feedback-mechanisms-of-the-chinese-system-c5710759a51f

China isn't a democracy[^*] and that's a Good Thing.

[^*]: according to the way Westerners use the term

https://youtu.be/XUSiCEx3e-0

Sacha Baron Cohen has its broken clock moments.