Just because a country does not conform to a Western definition of "democratic", doesn't mean that that country is not a democracy.

I would personally say that the United States is not a democracy by a typical definition, because voters don't actually have the choice to vote for anything they like, and not just crank things but even things that are very popular and very important - medicare for all is a popular policy that neither party represents for example, and third parties are so disempowered by the voting system that it is essentially impossible (but not technically! as if that matters!) for any other party to gain power in their place. The generally low approval ratings for various parts of the government (the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court) are an indication of this. Is the mere ability to choose between two options, especially bad options, really a good definition of democracy? Might, perhaps, there be better ones?

Compare this to China. Sure, it's a one-party state, but it's a communist one-party state, as opposed to the United States' capitalist one party state that is merely separated into two separate parties to meet their own, bad, definition of democracy. That being said, it's actually quite a highly decentralized country, with regional and local officials elected by the people. More importantly, it has very high approval ratings and the people's needs are generally met. I think this is a much better definition of democracy because where the people's needs are made the priority. It's harder to game that kind of system - the former definition has the "cheat code" of just splitting one party in two and then having the rich "lobby" both of them (AKA, legalized corruption) to have the same policies where it counts, whereas the latter can't do that, it actually has to deliver the goods. Of course, it's not as if you can't have both - a system where you can choose everything about your country, and one where most people's needs are generally met and most people approve. But if we have to have one or the other, the latter is the more important feature, IMO.