So I've been putting off writing this for a long time and it'll probably need to be a series, but I've had a difficult time answering challenges from my friends who assert that China is either a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie or of the Bureaucracy (i.e. state capitalists), and that it's a competing imperialist power along with America (and they also say Russia but I can answer that one being stupid on my own).
The problem with China Discourse is that there is a serious paucity of sources dealing with nuanced critiques rather than just "debt trap!" bullshit or whatever, since the objections of liberals and the objections of smarter ultras are very different. At the very least, the sources dealing with this Discourse are less accessible to me.
But now I'm extremely bored and also recently saw Comrade Queermmunist's excellent rebuttal against the claim of China doing imperialism in the DRC, which gave me some hope that Hexbear would be able to answer some of these claims with something at least plausible.
The main objects of concern are the for-profit national businesses causing bureacratic class antagonism, foreign policy in the form of UN peacekeeping contributions, and straightforward imperialism at the base of its supply chain, along with miscellany like this:
https://newworker.us/international/chinas-stock-market-a-lesson-on-what-socialism-is-not/
I don't know, it's all a mess and putting off ideological work causes problems. If nothing else, let this be a practical lesson to you:
To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.
It catches up with you and makes things worse in the end.
I have said this many times:
People who think China is capitalist are wrong. People who think China is socialist (in the traditional sense) are also wrong.
It is socialism with Chinese characteristics. It is its own thing.
Failing to understand this very important distinction is what’s causing people to struggle to grapple with what they should think of China today.
People try to project their own perspectives onto China, like it is a success story of capitalism, a communist hellhole, a red imperialist state, a socialist paradise and the second coming of the Soviet Union, neither of which is anything that China ever pretends to be. But one thing is certain: whether you like it or not, and however you think of it, China will make its mark in the world, with its remarkable achievements as well as historical mistakes and flaws that can be legitimately criticized without resorting to parroting Western propaganda.
Chinese socialism is at its core a nationalist project (as Mao said, no internationalism without nationalism). It will always seek to maximize and protect its own interests and the well-being of its own people, prioritizing its own survival as a nation and civilization surrounded by hostile imperialist bases, as it navigates through highly dynamic and changing global geopolitical and economic climates, preferring mutual cooperations and respecting national sovereignties to exporting revolutions and direct military interventions in foreign soils, as the Soviet Union did, or as an expansionist imperial state like the United States. It never pretends to be either.
China is socialist tho. People just have this weird idea that socialism is when like the USSR or like Cultural Revolution China. No, Socialism is a process, as such it can be divided into stages. China currently is on the primary stage, with the economy controlled indirectly and not fully planned. It retreated to this stage after the Sino-Soviet-Split and the Cultural Revolution showed they did not have the material foundations for the next stage (which they forcefully moved into back then) yet. Their aim for 2049 is to finish building those foundations to securely move to the next stage of socialism.
So Socialism with Chinese Characterisistics is not "its own thing", it is a scientific approach to the challenges within socialism in China.