Regarding huge policy shifts in China, such as the original revolution, Cultural Revolution, Dengism, and now the current era, the CPC has always followed the will of the general masses. You can see this on a smaller scale with how they responded to public opinions about quarantine during COVID, furthering or slackening restrictions based off of what the average Chinese people wanted.

This should come as no surprise, as over 90% of Chinese people say that they trust and are satisfied with the CPC. This fact is supplemented by the high union membership, high power of unions and workers over employers, high party membership, diverse membership across all organizations, etc., that the Chinese enjoy.

The same story repeats itself, over and over, both in China, the USSR, and whatever other countries the Western Left decries as "authoritarian."

The fact of the matter is, "authoritarian" is just new word in the same old information war against communism that capitalism has waged for centuries. They feel threatened by the existence of socialist countries that do well, as they don't want their own working class getting funny ideas. So, they ignore, degrade, or erase the good, while highlighting, exaggerating, and fabricating the bad. They want you to discard the methods that are proven to work, and instead choose the paths that are proven to fail.

The US Empire is one of the most prolofic liars and warmongers in human history. They have lied to its own citizens about more than can be counted. They told you MLK was a violent thug, climate change wasn't real, and that Saddam had WMDs, and that was before they had coffee. So humor us for a moment: assume that these "authoritarian countries" really are true socialist countries. Why would you listen to what the epicenter of capitalism and fascism, and a well-documented liar, has to say about socialism, its foil and mortal enemy?

"Authoritarian" in reality means, "a country that does things the United States doesn't like." Simple.