Here is the analytical difficulty. By putting Russia and China into one category, "autocracies," we obscure the vast difference between the two. Russia's media, though operating under censorship, is unarguably subject to fewer restrictions than the Chinese media.
Regime criticism is actually fairly common in the print media in Russia. @BBCSteveR does a great job monitoring Russian newspapers. Check out his #ReadingRussia feed to get a better sense. Here's a recent tweet: . This would be unthinkable in China.
Russia has a much more vibrant civil society than China. Now, you might say: what about the brutal riot police crackdown on the demonstrators last summer. Yes, there was that. As someone who participated in these demonstrations, I can say: the crackdown was brutal and scary.
On the other hand, we also know that the regime frequently allows demonstrations. Why, there is one happening on Feb. 29 to honour the slain dissident Boris Nemtsov, organised, inter alia, by prominent dissident @vkaramurza. The regime has concurred. Trying doing this in China.
Russia holds elections, however deeply flawed. Recent Moscow city elections resulted in severe setbacks to the ruling United Russia. Previously, United Russia suffered setbacks in several regional elections, e.g. in Khabarovsk & Vladivostok. China doesn't even have elections.
When we divide the world into "democracies" and "autocracies," we lose all sense of nuance, which is unhelpful to policy. The world is not black and white. The world is increasingly hybrid.
I should add that many of the key challenges of the present day - corruption, staggering income inequality, populism, bad governance etc - cut right across the "autocracy"-"democracy" dichotomy. Seeing the world as "autocracy vs democracy" does not help in addressing these.
