China is helping Russia ramp up its defense industrial base at such a large scale that Moscow is now undertaking its most ambitious expansion in military manufacturing since the Soviet era as it continues its war against Ukraine, according to senior Biden administration officials.
The support China is providing includes significant quantities of machine tools, drone and turbojet engines and technology for cruise missiles, microelectronics, and nitrocellulose, which Russia uses to make propellant for weapons, said the officials.
Chinese and Russian entitles have also been working jointly to produce drones inside of Russia, one of the officials said.
“war against capitalism”
Don’t fool yourself into believing China is communist though. At this point they’re just a different flavor of capitalism.
My Chinese history professor said that every citizen is a good member of the communist party, and every smart citizen buys and sells at the Shanghai stock exchange.
China doesn’t claim to have a communist economic system though. They understand perfectly well that they have a market economy. Their rationale for this apparent contradiction is that they believed they couldn’t grow quickly enough in isolation. They thought that by building a market economy they could trade with the western world and therefore rapidly develop. I think that gambit has clearly paid off. It’ll be interesting to see what decisions China makes once their economy is strong enough that the US cannot legitimately threaten it.
So what communist system do they have? Control of idiots? I’m genuinely confused when I encounter “china communism” discussions as it always turns into shrodinger’s semantics.
I think China has been very clear with their image projection: it’s a totalitarian regime that only cares about Han chinese.
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They don’t have a communist system. As I said, they don’t claim to have one either. It’s not Schrödinger semantics. They do want to build a post scarcity society where every person is given the resources they need to thrive, aka communism. During the Mao era they thought they could achieve that through revolutionary fervor. After the failure of many of Mao’s campaigns they turned towards a model that prioritized economic growth. That meant they were willing to leverage a market economy for however long it was useful.
You can just go and read their self assessment on past actions and their development plans. They aren’t shy about it and there’s no real indication they’re lying about their intentions. They’re pretty explicit about why they think maintaining the political supremacy of the CPC is important.
They also don’t put out any statements to indicate they believe in Han supremacy. That’s honestly silly to me especially when you consider the vast ethnic and cultural diversity that’s contained within the Han ethnic group. The CPC is however very concerned about maintaining national integrity which means they do suppress independence movements within the country. That goes for both ideological movements such as the protests in Hong Kong and Taiwanese independence or ethnic movements as in Tibet and Xinjiang.
Do yourself a service and learn of their plans for the future. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is an interesting read.