Wino and SkyD, with the greatest respect, I think you should accept gracefully that in the (non US) democratic world there are actually people who rightly or wrongly, have come to different conclusions on the state of the world than the 'US line'. Believe it or not, there are actually other countries outside the USA with popularly elected governments where people are allowed to speak their minds and such opinions might not agree entirely with US policy.
I'm first to agree that the current government of China is far from the one I'd like to live under, (or see anyone have to live under), but can you both retreat just for one minute from the position you appear to be taking and ask yourself an admittedly complex and uncomfortable question? What would have happened within China if the unquestionably incredibly courageous protesters at Tiannamen Square had prevailed and the current PRC government had been turfed out in 1989?
We may have seen a wonderful, enlightened democracy (as we in the West know it) established overnight. However, uncomfortable as it is to say so, I believe it's far more likely we'd have seen that huge country descend into a state of utter chaos that would have left Russia and the former Yugoslavia over the last ten years look like a minor school yard brawl. In modern times, it's only in the last fifty years that China hasn't been ruled by a very disparate group of (many different) warlords, most of them of the lowest possible kind. I think China would have very quickly descended into a repeat of those terrible times of the 1920's, before the Japanese entered the equation and turned the country into a charnel house but gave most of the Chinese people one enemy to fight. I'm not saying the terrible things the current PRC government have done and are doing to the Chinese people are in any way excusable, but I am saying that things there could quite easily be a whole lot worse. Think of Yugoslavia times ten thousand. That's how bad it could be if the iron fist of the current government were to be removed and not be replaced by something strong and uniting. Sadly, I don't think our Western brand of democracy would provide that.