That's only true if you blindly follow the idea of "feudalism->capitalism->socialism" in that order without any regard for the reasons that drive it. The idea is that capitalism would be necessary to create the conditions that lead to revolution, it's not some quota where if you have a successful revolution without ever building capitalist industry you have to go back and do capitalism for a little bit to check it off the list.
Besides, China already has productive forces that are the envy of the entire world, how much more time do they spend on brutal exploitation before they're done "building productive forces"?
You are aware that China's economy is still way, waaaaaaay smaller than the US, right? And that's not taking into account the US military, or airforce, or navy. Or the US's mass of allies. Really, if you wanna get a real picture of what the global situation looks like, take the stats of the US, the rest of north america, the EU, the commonwealth of nations, occupied Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and add them together. Then, add together the stats of China, Cuba, Venezuela, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and any other leftist area's I'm forgetting. How does that look in terms of GDP, military, etc? China is not currently able to take on almost the entire globe by itself. And Marx himself admired how well capitalism did growth. An economy based on capitalism, which is the reverence of growth to the exclusion of all else, will obviously grow faster than socialism or communism, based on production towards needs. If you're not a marxist, or a believer in historical materialism, fair enough, but if you are, you need to understand capitalism as a pre-requisite to socialism. And if you're not a marxist, you still need to realise that, unless China industrialises to a point where it can compete against capital directly, it needs to avoid conflict with the west, and build it's productive forces. Like what do you think would happen if China was just like "ok, gonna expropriate everything now and implement full communism?" Do you think capital's gonnna go "Ok, fair enough. Have fun with your communist utopia that will destabilize our regimes by existing"? No, there'd be a new cold war, massive embargoes, etc, etc. The US economy, by itself(not including the rest of the capitalist world), is 32% larger than China. Until China is more powerful than capitalists, they're gonna have to keep building up.
edit: an->and b/c I'm waaay too drunk to be arguing politics at 1 AM
That's only true if you blindly follow the idea of "feudalism->capitalism->socialism" in that order without any regard for the reasons that drive it. The idea is that capitalism would be necessary to create the conditions that lead to revolution, it's not some quota where if you have a successful revolution without ever building capitalist industry you have to go back and do capitalism for a little bit to check it off the list.
Besides, China already has productive forces that are the envy of the entire world, how much more time do they spend on brutal exploitation before they're done "building productive forces"?
You are aware that China's economy is still way, waaaaaaay smaller than the US, right? And that's not taking into account the US military, or airforce, or navy. Or the US's mass of allies. Really, if you wanna get a real picture of what the global situation looks like, take the stats of the US, the rest of north america, the EU, the commonwealth of nations, occupied Korea, Taiwan and Japan, and add them together. Then, add together the stats of China, Cuba, Venezuela, DPRK, Vietnam, Laos, and any other leftist area's I'm forgetting. How does that look in terms of GDP, military, etc? China is not currently able to take on almost the entire globe by itself. And Marx himself admired how well capitalism did growth. An economy based on capitalism, which is the reverence of growth to the exclusion of all else, will obviously grow faster than socialism or communism, based on production towards needs. If you're not a marxist, or a believer in historical materialism, fair enough, but if you are, you need to understand capitalism as a pre-requisite to socialism. And if you're not a marxist, you still need to realise that, unless China industrialises to a point where it can compete against capital directly, it needs to avoid conflict with the west, and build it's productive forces. Like what do you think would happen if China was just like "ok, gonna expropriate everything now and implement full communism?" Do you think capital's gonnna go "Ok, fair enough. Have fun with your communist utopia that will destabilize our regimes by existing"? No, there'd be a new cold war, massive embargoes, etc, etc. The US economy, by itself(not including the rest of the capitalist world), is 32% larger than China. Until China is more powerful than capitalists, they're gonna have to keep building up.
edit: an->and b/c I'm waaay too drunk to be arguing politics at 1 AM