What your describing is more akin to social democracy. Economic liberalism is free markets, little regulations on private activity, free trade, free commerce, little worker rights or bargaining power and very active private influence in the state. That isn’t really at all comparable to china. The most comparable system to modern china is the Soviet NEP (New economic policy), where private industry is used to absorb foreign investment and Garner greater cooperation with the mostly capitalist global economy. This was dumped by the soviets in favor of “socialism in one country”, a more autarkic model that is much less reliant on foreign trade and cooperation. I’m not going to argue which is better, that’s a long discussion for another day. But this is exactly what path china has taken since deng. China connecting it’s economy to global commerce isn’t economic liberalism. SOEs and private companies are used to absorb foreign investment, and that investment is used to rapidly grow the economy. In a capitalist economically liberal china, that investment would be used to make the private barons richer and would be the sole property of those private barons, at the expense of the rest of the population. Instead, in china, that wealth is used to fund state owned industry and projects, as well as public services. Private industry is just bait, that’s all they are, pawns of the state that exist to bait in investment from foreign conglomerates that would never invest in state owned or state operated industry. Private industry in china is held on an incredibly tight leash, much harsher than any country in the globe that allows the private sector to exist. Private industry is only allowed to operate in a limited amount of fields, and is only allowed to operate in SEZs (special economic zones) designated by the government. This has been very successful for china, and if any self described economic liberals learned about how the Chinese economy operated, they would immediately lambast it as evil communism and would not at all come to the conclusion that capitalism or economic liberalism has been beneficial to china.
What your describing is more akin to social democracy. Economic liberalism is free markets, little regulations on private activity, free trade, free commerce, little worker rights or bargaining power and very active private influence in the state. That isn’t really at all comparable to china. The most comparable system to modern china is the Soviet NEP (New economic policy), where private industry is used to absorb foreign investment and Garner greater cooperation with the mostly capitalist global economy. This was dumped by the soviets in favor of “socialism in one country”, a more autarkic model that is much less reliant on foreign trade and cooperation. I’m not going to argue which is better, that’s a long discussion for another day. But this is exactly what path china has taken since deng. China connecting it’s economy to global commerce isn’t economic liberalism. SOEs and private companies are used to absorb foreign investment, and that investment is used to rapidly grow the economy. In a capitalist economically liberal china, that investment would be used to make the private barons richer and would be the sole property of those private barons, at the expense of the rest of the population. Instead, in china, that wealth is used to fund state owned industry and projects, as well as public services. Private industry is just bait, that’s all they are, pawns of the state that exist to bait in investment from foreign conglomerates that would never invest in state owned or state operated industry. Private industry in china is held on an incredibly tight leash, much harsher than any country in the globe that allows the private sector to exist. Private industry is only allowed to operate in a limited amount of fields, and is only allowed to operate in SEZs (special economic zones) designated by the government. This has been very successful for china, and if any self described economic liberals learned about how the Chinese economy operated, they would immediately lambast it as evil communism and would not at all come to the conclusion that capitalism or economic liberalism has been beneficial to china.