"The speeches you cite from Deng are mostly from 40 years ago. Deng is trying to reconcile a contradiction in China's political economy, which seeks to introduce market capitalism and maintain Mao's socialist thought. Such a feat is impossible. China is not a socialist economy anymore. Mao's thinking about economics has been tossed into the waste bin by Deng and his successors. China's political economy is based on the model of state capitalism, which is inherently at odds with Maoism. Gorbachev did something similar in the USSR in the 1980s, saying that perestroika was consistent with Leninism. Nonsense. Politically, however, Xi is a Maoist in so far as the Communist party is the only legitimate political force in the country."
oh COME ON
lol @ 40 years ago what a clown.
Imagine being this intellectually insecure as a professor that's supposed to teach classes on this shit. Scratch that, this is exactly why your prof is acting like a R*ddit debate baby making obviously bad-faith arguments: they don't know this topic but feel the need to protect their auspices of expertise so that nobody notices they are teaching a subject they don't understand, i.e. they're bad at their job.
A good, secure professor would quickly recognize and admit their ignorance and challenge you with actually good ideas or readings even if they continue to disagree with your premise. This one is channeling Dinesh D'Souza because they're a fucking child.
Most likely, your prof is going to continue acting in bad faith and you should expect bullshitting in responses. Arguments that they know are weak or stupid but were all they could come up with in the five minutes they thought about you and this topic and they don't really care if it's dishonest hot takes in their ignorance. Set your expectations accordingly and craft your responses around the assumption that they're an insecure ignorant baby but you can't actually call them that or imply it, only demonstrate it through interactions. You need to be the "calmer" one at all times. Thorough and calm debunking drives these people insane.