China's recorded history goes back more than 3000 years. Granted, it was only unified 2200 years ago.
I don't know if any possible interpretation of Chinese history that puts China's formation a mere 500 or 1000 years ago. The Qin dynasty (3rd Century BC) is really the absolute latest point at which you could say China came into existence.
It's more like the British harkening back to Chaucer's England.
The problem with the Rome analogy is that China has had much greater continuity than Europe. China is what Europe would have been, if the Roman Empire had been reconstituted each time it collapsed.
Imagine if there were still one political entity ruling the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe, calling itself "Rome," speaking a Romance language, and in which every educated person was still capable of reading the Latin classics (with some difficulty).
Because it’s a propaganda term meant to imply China is uncivilized without directly saying it. Like calling America a democracy. We know it’s not but propaganda keeps that image “out there.”
You can be "civilized" and an autocracy. Certain aspects of modern China makes the West look like a backwater. Hell, even Russia has less people in prison than the US and free heath care.
Also, that phrase just reeks of imperialism, racism and superiority - just a modern version of "savages who need our one true religion". OPs argument is about democracy, not level of development and culture.
What aspect of China makes the West look like a 'backwater'? I literally cannot think of a single thing. That doesn't mean China has no positive aspects. The West is also not monolithic.
I’d argue that most of the numbers you’ll find apply to the US, not to the west. The US is pretty much known everywhere for having third world shortcomings on specific areas.
The United States ranks as one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking
Despite a common and widespread misconception, human trafficking is not just a problem outside the US. It also happens here, within United States borders, and in every state.
Less people incarcerated is good, how the prisoners are treated is another issue entirely and of course China can and should be heavily criticized for that.
But penal labor for literally cents/day or private prisons as a source of profit or the death penalty are something that the US, above all, should be able to improve on, before lecturing other countries over human rights.
Let's talk about
“Guantanamo Bay is a site of unparalleled notoriety, defined by the systematic use of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment against hundreds of men brought to the site and deprived of their most fundamental rights.”
This is a statement from "The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations".
What have the consequences been? Nothing. Literally nothing has changed!
People have been detained there for years, most of them without any charges, denied of the right to a due process, only because they were Muslims.
39 of those men are still kept captive there as of today, 20 years later, 27 of them have never been charged with any crime, the others have been cleared for transfer years ago, but are still there.
Imagine if China did something like that what the US would be saying about it.
That's the moral short circuit: if it's wrong it must be wrong for everybody, especially for those claiming to hold in high regards human rights, not only if China or Russia do it.
We do plenty of uncivilised things in the democratic world. Casting China as uncivilised empowers the CCP to point at our prejudices and argue that their way is better and any Chinese who support democracy are self-hating traitors.