This shows how cowardly they are. They should be giving credit to autocracy for China's success, thus inspiring scepticism towards democracy by presenting China as a representative of the alternative. Instead they go with the cowardly claim that China is merely a "different type of democracy". Such a statement implies that they themselves believe that democracy has the moral high ground, but worse, everyone knows the statement itself ("China is democratic") is false, therefore everyone can now accuse China of actually knowing democracy is superior (hence being motivated to claim to be democratic) but still refusing to become democratic in reality, which is the worst position China can put itself in.
This is a perfect example of China's PR incompetence as noted above.