What China does in the day light, most western democracies like US do in the shadows.

Calling China a totalitarian regime could bring attention to the fact that in most western democracies our vote has no influence over the policies adopted and this same policies are screwing us and benefitting those who have power putting us in the same conditions those living in the totalitarian regime.

because nobody wants to say "successfully governed by a totalitarian regime"

somehow, west democracies consider anatema to admit that totalitarin regimes can effectively manage entire countries.

And China has enough success that it cannot be dismissed as luck, or anything else than (totalitarian) government plans which achieved the same good outcomes as western democracies have

This is not so unusual, having successful capitalist economies under dictaorships. Chile under Pinochet, Iran under Ayatollahs, Russia under Putin and more than a few others past and present. China's government isn't so much communist as it is dynastic, just as Russia' s government it Czarist.