Just a reminder that the DPRK is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

North Korea is a democratic republic!

This is utter nonsense.

Democracy is the idea that people should control their government. The CCP's (and Putin's) notion of "democracy" is something along the lines of "as long as the government controls the people, the people can decide".

Democracy may be a spectrum but China isn't on it, neither in practice nor in spirit. If you have to control the media and prevent free discussion, you aren't practicing democracy.