This is a serious question, I want to understand your views. I know very little about the Chinese system, but from what I know it doesn’t seem to be very communist at all, but rather a capitalist state to rival the US. Why do you all defend it so viciously?
I think it’s pretty clear that China is nothing like US. I think it’s important to look where the labor and resources are allocated in the country. In a capitalist state like US, they’re primarily allocated towards producing surplus value for the capital owners, meanwhile production of socially useful things is entirely incidental.
On the other hand in China, we see huge amounts of resources devoted towards ending poverty. They are on track to eliminate abject poverty this year. They poured more concrete in three years than US has in the entire 20th century. They provide food, housing, healthcare, and education for the vast majority of the population.
China also hasn’t shown aggressive imperialist tendencies like US. Since the 1970s, China has not once gone to war while US has not spent a day at peace. Since 2001, the U.S. has spent over $6 trillion on military operations and war, money that might have been invested in the infrastructure of home.. So, while capitalism drives constant war and exploitation, socialism is improving the quality of life for the people of the nation.
Furthermore, CCP has 90 million members. This comes out to 15.5 citizens to every party member. Xi has also introduced reforms that make membership more strict in order to prevent careerism. So, every person in China either personally knows a party member or related to a party member. This translates to China having strong social programs, providing housing, education, and healthcare for their citizens that I mentioned above. People in China predominantly agree that the party is working in their interest.
China now surpassed US in number of fortune 500 companies, and 24 out of the 25 largest companies in China are state owned.The only private company on there is Huawei which is technically a cooperative. China also keeps their billionaires on a leash, and actually jails them which is unheard of in the West.
It’s also worth remembering that China is working towards communism. Nobody is saying that the current situation is the end state. Both Marx and Lenin say that you can’t just create a communist society out of the blue. It has to be a process to transform it gradually towards communism. This is the whole idea behind withering of the state. Lenin also correctly notes that it’s not possible for this to happen until communism is the dominant ideology in the world. The capitalist forces are always going to fight communism, and a state is needed to combat that.
China obviously has made mistakes, but that’s just how life works. It’s not possible to do something completely new and get everything right on the first try. However, what’s important is that China is clearly learning from their mistakes and improving as they go along. This is in line with the concept of implementing scientific communism.
I’m gonna be honest, some people in these circles have a way too delusional view of China for my liking, and will defend basically every part of it.
I personally think you don’t have to do that. There’s a lot of problems in China, and it doesn’t make you a “bad Marxist” to admit that. I still support it however, while it’s not perfect I wouldn’t say it’s a capitalist country like the U.S. and I think the world is a better place with China in it than if the U.S. had zero competition in the world stage.
The U.S., Brazil, and India all have far-right crazies in charge. Can you imagine the world if China wasn’t what it is? The world would literally be dominated by fascists. I’ll always prefer a “not so perfect” communism to fascism and shit like that. God knows what kinda leadership China would have right now if it wasn’t for the communist party.
Yeah, I wish it was better and I do think there are serious issues. But compared to the alternatives, I’m glad China exists and I support them.
some people in these circles have a way too delusional view of China for my liking, and will defend basically every part of it.
Which defenses have you found to be problematic in these supposed circles, enough to warrant the title of ‘delusional’? Have you realized we’re in a new cold war, with an increasing possibility of a hot war by the day? What need is there for any western leftist’s unheard “nuance” in the current moment? You see people defending the PRC fiercely because they understand the stakes and rightly treat a dangerous moment with utmost seriousness.
Yeah, I wish it was better and I do think there are serious issues.
Why are you telling us this and not bringing your vague concerns to the CPC itself? What is the reason any western leftist even brings this up in the first place anyway?
China isn’t facist? How so? So they don’t suppress other opinions and cultures? They don’t lock up and kill people they don’t like? They are not imperialistic? They’re not almost an autocracy?
You are a bad Marxist because you didn’t understand or read his works carefully. For Marx, Capitalism was a necessary evil to reach true communism. A vehicle. He predicted technological and social advances, step-by-step, until we reach communism. So to debate which country is a „good communist country“ is moot as there can’t be real communism yet.
Whether it is China or the western world who’ll reach true communism first will have to be seen. I for one see Europe ahead of China and especially the US, as Europe - at least ideologically - strives to make everyone equal under the law / give everyone the same opportunities. It has homework to do on tue technological front, but that’s nothing unachievable. Whereas culturally, China and the US are better technology wise but far away socially and culturally.
I wouldn’t say we viciously defend it, after all even if China wasn’t socialist it’d be worth defending from an anti-imperialist perspective. China emerged from years of colonial subjugation (the century of humiliation) after the Chinese revolution, and built what is today the only country capable of challenging US world domination.
Really though, China’s massive improvements in life expectancy, real wages, and living standards show that its socialist, planned system is working.
No system is perfect, especially in a transition away from world capitalism, and subordinating the market economy to the will of the CPC, to provide for the needs of the people, and protecting China from western interventionism, remain the most important tasks for the CPC.
As far as “China not being communist”:
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions.
Sorry sweaty, but 24/25 is not good enough and revisionism. Don’t you know that billionaires = revisionism as well?
Plus, economy success is a terrible way of measuring the socialistness of a nation. It means unequal development, which is a thing that exists under capitalism which means, you guessed it! Revisionism! The only true way to be a socialist nation is for everyone to be equally poor and struggling and ideologically pure. We can’t allow a single non-socialist in a socialist country, regardless of if they hold political power or not. A people’s democracy means doing what is purest and not actually listening to the people after all.
/s (I do have my own issues with China’s unequal development, but I can also recognize when the CPC actively aims to improve things on that front. China didn’t freeze in place in 1978.)
Ignore socialism for one moment
China developed from sub saharan African conditions only 40 years ago
They went from feudalism and a century of humiliation before the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949
Prior to 1949 the life expectancy was 35
20 years under Mao this had doubled to 70 years old
Since 1979 China has not been in a war and has gone from said sub saharan African conditions to a space faring civilisation landing on the far side of the moon and putting rovers on Mars
They did this without the hyper exploitation of colonies and wars of imperialism for conquests of booty
The Chinese people know what life was like a generation ago - their parenta tell them. The Communist Party of China enjoys a 89% approval rating of Chinese people precisely because they’ve lifted up the greatest number of humans out of poverty in such a short period of time
For that alone China should be praised daily by the world proletariat and the world socialist movement in the face of the most reactionary and murderous regime the world has ever seen (US and its puppets in Nato)
We can, of course, get onto comradely critiques of whether China is in socialism, whether they have succumbed to revisionism etc.
But we can only do that, as far as im concerned, when youve said your ten hail marys to China and thanked the CCP for it’s unbelievable sprint of humanity it has done for the human race since 1949
