I have to disagree with the other responses as the question is not asking what China thought of Japan's modernization, but rather the act of the Restoration itself. As a note, at the time, China was already undergoing significant modernization and westernization. The "Tongzhi Restoration" in 1861, which was backed by the powerful officials and bureaucracy that made up the aristocracy was a sign of this. In fact, if China had not been undergoing modernization at this time, under no circumstances would it have been perceived that China had the upper hand in a modern war against Japan (as in the First Sino-Japanese War). If the question is asking about the modernization that accompanied the Restoration, the mostly likely answer would be scoffing at the Japanese submission to Western values while quietly acknowledging the superiority of Western arms.

It is likely that most aristocrats would have dismissed the Restoration itself as being the actions of a minor country of no relevance. Until the first Sino-Japanese War, the general perception among China's nobility was that the Japanese were insignificant barbarians that mattered little to the might of China. As for the general act of restoring the Emperor to power, a Chinese aristocrat would likely have scoffed at this, saying something along the lines of how China's emperor had the Mandate of Heaven, and was thus all-powerful, and did not need a bunch of up-starts to reclaim his power from a mere human, and a Japanese at that. Bear in mind the last major foreign dispute between Japan and China at the time (well, aside from the Wokou Pirates) was in the late 1500s, during the Japanese invasion of Korea, which China and Korea repulsed. Why should a proud member of China's elite care about the political disputes of a minor, insignificant country of "eastern dwarves?"