The notion that China lacks 'proper civil society' is in my mind rooted in a western sense of orientalism and good old fashioned racism. I'm no defender of China, but let's recognize that the same nations trying to punish China because 'human rights'(US, UK) are the same ones responsible for killing close to 1 million Iraqis and creating the largest humanitarian crisis on earth(Yemen).
And this is good, old fashioned bullshit.
Chinese citizens do not have the same rights and protections westerners do, nor a democratic system. They don't have the right to speak freely, congregate as they wish, protest or foment change in their own society.
Western societies are imperfect, those rights are not protected or executed perfectly there. But they do exist, and the problems with them are orders of magnitude smaller than their total lack in China.