‘Democracy’ has been frequently praised by the Chinese political leadership, while liberal democratic institutions have remained conspicuously absent under CPC one-party rule. This study explores the discourse on democracy in the newspaper China Daily between the years 2007 and 2017 to determine how the concept is articulated in a Chinese presumably alternate discourse on democracy. Fifty articles published between 2007 and 2017 are sampled, and a discourse analysis is performed to identify prominent themes featured in these articles concerning democracy. The sample is then further divided in two subsamples with a cutoff in 2012, to investigate whether there has been a qualitative shift in the discourse since the accession to power of Xi Jinping. The analysis shows that - and how – the discourse treats China largely as a particular democracy, frequently contrasted with ‘Western-style democracy’, and downplays certain democratic principles and institutions in favor of alternative ones. It also shows that an overall shift in tone seems to have occurred since the accession of Xi, from optimistic and progressive to a more negative one.