this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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Do you think China is a socialist country?
Yes. China is controlled by the Communist Party of China, who maintain an unbreakable grip on the commanding heights of the economy - energy, utilities, infrastructure, steel, finance etc. State-owned enterprises are some of the largest companies in the country, and hence also some of the largest in the world.
Foreign capitalists were invited to invest in China starting in the 80s, in order to bring in the technology and capital (tools, machines and money) that China was sorely lacking. This unfortunately led to several of the problems typical to capitalist economies - uneven development between the cities and countryside, increases in wealth inequality, the strengthening of the national capitalist class and the spread of liberal (pro-capitalist) ideas - but through the whole process, and unlike in the USSR, the CPC maintained total political control and didn't allow the capitalists to dictate policy.
It's true that China appeared to go quite far in a liberal direction, including by joining the WTO; around the turn of the millennium, the US and the rest of the capitalist world assumed that China would soon liberalize completely, both economically and politically, and they'd be able to break it open and feast on the insides like they did with the USSR. Instead, since then, and especially since the appointment of Xi Jinping as President, China has been moving, more or less rapidly but seemingly inexorably, towards more outright socialist policies. The result of the swing to the right and now back to the left is that China has had one of the longest and fastest sustained periods of economic development in human history.
Here are some images demonstrating their economic success
China's growth outperformed every other major economy by an absolutely unfathomable degree:China, following a centrally-planned socialist development scheme, went from poorer than to richer than nearly all of Africa, which was trapped in extractive capitalist "development" hell by coercive IMF and World Bank loans and the austerity policies forced on them by the terms of these loans:
And China didn't just create products for export, but materially improved the lives of its citizens to an enormous degree. This is just one example of the kinds of change that Chinese citizens saw in a single generation:
This is a really important image - China's economy grew massively while its workers' salaries also grew massively in the same period, going from the cheapest labor in South East Asia to the most expensive (but, thanks to development of technology, also by far the most productive):
And here is China's response to a growing bubble in the Chinese real estate market:
No capitalist country could ever even conceive of going against the wishes of the finance capitalists, who make huge fortunes off of real estate speculation even as it drives the economy into devastating recessions. But China was able to forcibly deflate the bubble, transferring investment from speculating on real estate into the further development of industry.
In short, no capitalist economy run by and for the capitalist class could ever have made these achievements. Only an ideologically committed and politically dominant communist party would be able to manage an economy this way, wielding the capitalists as tools to improve the productive forces and raise their people out of poverty while setting the stage for the transition to socialism.
Edit: here is a long essay, China Has Billionaires, on the same subject, which is well worth the read
These achievements are just in name only. In reality, ordinary people still live very poorly. In the early days of reform and opening up, the growth rate was frighteningly low. Later, it was only by selling off state-owned assets and mass layoffs that it recovered. In addition, the mass layoffs in the 1990s left millions of workers unemployed. These workers could only become lumpen proletariat, become thieves, robbers, or commit suicide. This is an ironclad fact. The reason you think China is good is because you have not experienced it yourself, and can only listen to the current ruling class's boasting.
Okay, so where's your proof of this? Reports? Graphs? Photos?
Of course you don't have any because you're just asserting an absolutely, totally ridiculous narrative. The growth rate was frighteningly low?? It was the fastest rate of economic growth in human history! The people became poorer??? China is basically the only place in the world that lifted anyone out of poverty in the last thirty years! Without China, global poverty reduction is a net negative. 800 million people joined the middle class! These are not achievements you can have "in name only". Like, you can't fake the fact that China produced ONE BILLION TONS of steel last year, or that it installed four times as much green energy as the entire G7 combined. These facts require an enormous, highly advanced industrial base, which requires an enormous, highly skilled body of workers.
So what, exactly, is your personal experience of China that contradicts these provable facts then?
Video of the Jasic Movement，https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWMu_MIDqNI
Calculated by the total industrial and agricultural output value, the average annual growth rate from 1966 to 1978 was 8.5%, far exceeding the 6.7% growth rate from 1979 to 1981 after the reform and opening up. There are many economic indicators, such as coal, oil, steel, power generation, machine tools, etc. The growth rate of production is even higher than after the reform. The national fiscal revenue has an average annual growth of 6.9%, far exceeding the average annual negative growth rate of 1.7% from 1979 to 1981. If the economy was "on the verge of collapse" during the "Cultural Revolution", then wouldn't the economy from 1979 to 1981 after the reform be even more "on the verge of collapse"! —— Jiang Weigang "Objectively Look at my country's Economic Development during the Cultural Revolution"
China's workers' movement in the past 10 years
China's growth rate during the Mao era，Red - heavy industry，Yellow - industry，Blue - light industry，Green - agriculture
Now, China is a monopoly capitalist country and is controlled by the bureaucratic capitalist class.
China does have Capitalism, yes, but you do need to back up the claim that the bourgeoisie control the State, and not the other way around.
China is not pure luxury space gay communism, nobody claims it is.
Do you believe China can better serve the interests of the international proletariat by decoupling from the global economy like the USSR did and risk painting an even larger target on its back, risking the same fate as the USSR, or do you believe China's international focus requires engaging in Capitalism for the time being, so as to become an influential power?
The reason why the Soviet Union was corrupt was that it became a revisionist country after Stalin's death. China should continue to follow Mao Zedong's line, rather than exchanging the blood and sweat of the proletariat for so-called economic development. Because even if it continues to follow the line of the Mao era, it can still have tremendous development, and it does not rely on the exploitation of the proletariat. You have to know that China developed nuclear bombs, missiles and satellites during the Mao era. In 30 years, it developed from a backward agricultural country into an industrial country on par with the United States.
You're falling for the trap of Ultraleftism, and aren't looking at China from a Materialist perspective.
Why did the USSR become revisionist after Stalin's death? Do you believe in Great Man Theory, or do you look at Material Conditions, Contradictions, and move from there?
China did rapidly develop under Mao. Development is not the primary reason for Dengist reform. The PRC decided not to follow in the footsteps of the USSR and repeat their mistakes, instead choosing to become a necessary backbone of the international economy, seeking to create a multipolar world by unseating US Hedgemony. You may be intetested in reading The Long Game and its Contradictions.
Because Stalin did not realize that after the establishment of the socialist country, there would still be two class conflicts. He realized it in his later years, but unfortunately the bourgeois forces within the party were already very strong. What you call "following the footsteps of the Soviet Union" is revisionism, and Deng Xiaoping also followed revisionism. Do you think that the means of production in China are now publicly owned?
So we have:
Great Man Theory. You believe Stalin could have individually saved Socialism, rather than admitting flaws in the State itself arose from Material Conditions and contradictions unresolved.
Ultraleftism, and a rejection of Historical and Dialectical Materialism. You analyze China as a snapshot, a static, unshifting system, and not as a state that changes each and every day.
Read the article I linked for you.
I don't think Stalin could save the Soviet Union, because Stalin's death was largely due to the assassination of capitalist elements. His fundamental contradiction was between the capitalist group and the socialist collective. Stalin's death was just a sign, just like in China, Lin Biao's death represented that the rebels were gradually losing to the capitalist roaders, and Mao Zedong's death was a sign that China had entered revisionism.
So you're doubling down on Great Man Theory and are an Idealist, rather than a Materialist, got it.
Please tell me your opinion instead of making baseless sarcasm. We are all for an ideal, right?
It's not baseless sarcasm.
Great Man Theory places the course of history on the shoulders of influential figures, rather than the Material Conditions at hand.
We are all in favor of idealistic conditions, but Idealism is not the same as that. Idealism is, to put it simply, putting vibes and ideas over the practical reality of situations.
However, its economic development relies on the exploitation of its people, just as it did during the development of liberal capitalism. Moreover, the Communist Party of China can no longer represent the Chinese proletariat. The targets of the CCP's anti-terrorism drills are workers who are owed wages, and the policy is "If you can avoid arresting them, don't arrest them." against the capitalists.
That depends on your definition of socialist, I believe that China is a state capitalist/social democratic state(due to the existence of private capital while being heavily regulated by the state), whose main goal is to transition to socialism. Others might believe that China is socialist due to the governing body's ideology being socialist.