Summary
Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year’s speech that Taiwan’s “reunification” with China is inevitable.
China has escalated military activity around Taiwan, including frequent incursions near the island and sanctions on U.S.-linked companies over arms sales to Taipei.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te rejected Beijing’s claims, stating Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its people.
Lai also criticized China’s restrictions on travel and education exchanges with Taiwan, calling for dignified, reciprocal relations based on goodwill and equality.
Having markets and Private Property doesn’t mean a country isn’t dedicated to Socialism and eventual full public ownership. Rather, Marx and Engels maintained that even heavily developed countries could not immediately publicly own and plan all production, but that after the revolution this would be a gradual process. Focusing too much on Class Struggle and not on industrial development (which allows the Class Struggle to be accelerated as the more an industry develops the easier it is to plan it, a central observation about Capitalism that led Marx to predict the next mode of production to be Socialism), is a dogmatic mistake that led to the excesses in the Cultural Revolution.
Either way, back to the US, a more apt comparison would be decolonization and land-back for Indigenous Peoples, same with Canada.
Your saying it’s not capitalist and it clearly is now.
For the US example, it’s not comparable if you go back to Indigenous Peoples. That’s a whole other thing.
What do you mean by China is “clearly Capitalist?” What do you think Capitalism and Socialism are?
“Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.”
This applies to modern China.
Communism’s brief doesn’t fit modern China “a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in society based on need.”
Private Ownership isn’t the basis of the PRC’s economy, though. The PRC isn’t at Communism yet, either, rather they are Socialist. The base of their economy is in the Public Sector with strong state control over the Private Sector.
To ask this in another way, are you of the belief that a “single drop” of Capitalism makes the system Capitalist? The natural conclusion to that is that neither “Capitalism” nor “Socialism” has ever existed. This is obviously wrong, of course, the answer is that the system is determined by the sector with power over the economy.
So we agree modern China is not communist. From what I skim (not really read to be honest) capitalism came to China via Deng Xiaoping. Its not been becoming less capitalism since. Now it’s not different than other capitalist countries, only the state at the centre isn’t democratic and not accountable to its people or laws.
The CPC is a Communist Party, they are trying to build Communism. Communism is a global system, so no, we aren’t on the same page here.
Capitalism did not “come to China” via Deng. Markets existed even under Mao, what Deng did was invite foreign investment and allow profits to be made off of Chines labor in exchange for industrialization, training, and development. This was a bit of a gamble, but has been critical for the modern success of the PRC. This isn’t a total subversion of Socialism and a return to Capitalism, key industries were maintained in the Public Sector like banking, energy, steel, and so forth.
Next, this Private Sector has been more and more under direct control of the CPC as it develops, especially in the last decade. The CPC exerts firm control and executes strong central planning. This is an increase in socialization of the economy, gradually. This is fundamentally and entirely different from Capitalist countries, where the Private Sector is dominant and Capitalists control the state.
Finally, the PRC is democratic and accountable to the people, just not to wealthy Capitalists. I’m not sure where you are pulling this myth from, to be honest, there are elections, councils, mass participation, and multiple political parties. It isn’t the same as western systems, but it is democratic.
Overall, I think you need to do a fair bit more research into Marxism and the PRC if you want to be making qualitative judgments of it along Marxian lines, no shame in learning something new!
I appreciate what you do, and always learn from your comments.
Thanks, I appreciate the kind words! I know most people likely aren’t going to get much out of what I say, but I also know many others will learn a thing or two, and when they point that out it helps!
The trueth is all the countries you are calling capitalist because are probably all mixed economies. With a lot owned by the state. Here in the UK that includes our health service, education system, roads, the electricity grid, and more. Rail is being renationalised and water probably will have to be too as its privatisation (by the Conservatives in the 80s) has been an epic fail. The key difference is these countries can peacefully kick out the government and the government is answerable to laws. Laws it sets. We recently had a PM brought down for breaking his own Covid laws. We have free press holding governments to account. All kind of freedom of information and transparency.
China started out more communist than if is now. More like the USSR.
Taiwan is mixed economy like western democracies, and doesn’t want to be like China. Which is why China is having to talk about inflicting it by force.
The truth is that close to every economy beyond the very earliest tribal formations were all mixed economies. When people say a country is Socialist or Capitalist, they are making a judgement of which aspect of the economy holds power, and is thus primary. The idea that an economy can be 32% Capitalist and 68% Socialist is nonsense, everything in an economy exists in the context of the rest of it and thus cannot be seen as static quantities.
Your next bit, on saying the people “have the power to kick out government peacefully,” is frankly misguided. The laws in Capitalist society, such as the UK, are ultimately determined by the Bourgeoisie and to a lesser extent the remnants of the Monarchy. What is cast as voteable is what has already been predetermined as acceptable to the ruling class. A “free press” is really “free to be manipulated by wealth,” and it is in this manner that narratives are massaged. The truth is that there is no such thing as free press. No matter how independent or dependent, all press has an agenda, and all press has a bias.
As for the PRC, it had higher rates of Public Ownership in the past, yes. This did not make it “more Communist.” When understanding Marxism, one must understand that modes of production and forms of property ownership have different levels of development they excel at. Because the PRC collectivized too early, growth was unstable (though positive) and there was a lot of chaos. The expansion (not introduction!) of Markets and the invitation of foreign investment served to better suit the material conditions of the PRC in the 90s, and now that said industrialization has played enough of its part, the CPC is gradually extending more control and ownership. Marxism was applied under Mao, then it served its purpose and Marxism was applied again under Deng, then it served its purpose and now Marxism is being applied again under Xi and is continuing to serve its purpose based on new material conditions.
The Taiwan bit is complicated. The majority of Taiwanese people like the current status, but don’t want to be independent nor folded in. Many want to be folded into the PRC, and some are outright hostile. The Nationalist Kuomintang fled there during the end of the Communist Revolution, so in its present state it remains at odds with the Communist mainland.