example, I think China is more democratic than the US.

Both countries are a clusterfuck from a democratic/people decides perspective. The way both countries are ruled is quite similar. They're two sides of the same coin.

Because my metric for the level of 'democracy' in a nation is how closely that nations policies match the will of its people and how happy the people are with its policies

This is really hard to gauge for China specifically, because there's as you noted no electorally elected officials.

Furthermore it's an authoritarian leadership, known to punish dissidents. It's a very complex topic to go into who benefits and who don't, from the current Chinese policies. Chinas economy is as much, if not more, dependent on gig labour as the US is. The gig labourers are not in better conditions in China, than they are in the US.

It's not unheard of that parents pay for their adult children's medicine, because the only income their child could get was from a poorly paid delivery gig.

There's an issue globally with the elites having grown more greedy, especially in the past four decades. I think one of US, UK, China or Russia is going to see their elite lose power and fall to a popular uprising. Before any other oligarchical society, at which all oligarchs are going to give crumbs back to the people.

Just like European royal houses gave more wealth and power to their commoners as a response to the French revolution.