I came across this thoughtful response a while back, on Facebook of all places, and to this day it’s still one of the best intros to the “is China socialist?” question I’ve seen.— professional hog groomer (@bidetmarxman) January 25, 2022
I thought this was really well thought out actually
How developed does it need to be before you stop doing capitalism? How long will it take?
There can be many answers to this.
As long as the primary contradiction of American led western military, imperialist and monetary global dominance is overcome or at least as long as China doesnt feel confident economicaly and politicaly that it can overcome a scenario of full out cold war style military and economic confrontation and decoupling from foreign capital and markets without huge impact on the economic and social stability domesticaly. Im not so confident to say that China is right now developed (and evenly developed that is enough, rich enough per capita, has enough soft power and hard military power, has enough party discipline, enough regulatory hold on capital ,ideological dedication and education and low enough corruption, is self sufficient enough or ready to engage in proxy wars and decoupling in order to attempt it. It will always be a risk for that to happen and the US will make it inevitable before China would feel ready on its own but as of now it being gradual enough and corresponding to the relative balance of economic and military ability and worldwide allies China feels it has over the US makes sense
Also it coming after China resolves its internal contradictions of uneven development and rural-urban devide ,after a relative drop of wealth polarization , after a corretion of course of the late deng to early Xi era where capital overreach, western cultural hegemony, liberalism and neoliberalism spread way too much both in the cultural and political sphere. Those fights arent done or won or even certain to be won even tho we are seeing gradual changes towards the better in those ereas. "just do more socialism" is the answer eventualy yes but the ability and uitility of doing so right now and more rapidly than they are and any attempt to overplay their hand is up in the air
There can be many answers to this.
As long as the primary contradiction of American led western military, imperialist and monetary global dominance is overcome or at least as long as China doesnt feel confident economicaly and politicaly that it can overcome a scenario of full out cold war style military and economic confrontation and decoupling from foreign capital and markets without huge impact on the economic and social stability domesticaly. Im not so confident to say that China is right now developed (and evenly developed that is enough, rich enough per capita, has enough soft power and hard military power, has enough party discipline, enough regulatory hold on capital ,ideological dedication and education and low enough corruption, is self sufficient enough or ready to engage in proxy wars and decoupling in order to attempt it. It will always be a risk for that to happen and the US will make it inevitable before China would feel ready on its own but as of now it being gradual enough and corresponding to the relative balance of economic and military ability and worldwide allies China feels it has over the US makes sense
Also it coming after China resolves its internal contradictions of uneven development and rural-urban devide ,after a relative drop of wealth polarization , after a corretion of course of the late deng to early Xi era where capital overreach, western cultural hegemony, liberalism and neoliberalism spread way too much both in the cultural and political sphere. Those fights arent done or won or even certain to be won even tho we are seeing gradual changes towards the better in those ereas. "just do more socialism" is the answer eventualy yes but the ability and uitility of doing so right now and more rapidly than they are and any attempt to overplay their hand is up in the air