So I recently joined a socialist org (Eur*pe), been participating in some cool anti-imperialist protests and anti-fascist local struggle.
The topic of China's socialism came up in conversation, and I naturally said that China is socialist. They looked at me as if I were nuts, and a discussion ensued about China not being socialist.
Their points are that it's not expanding worldwide socialism, that it's engaging in imperialism in Africa, that it's only shifting to renewables because it's profitable for them, and the classic "but they have rich capitalist owners and the Chinese workers are exploited".
Doesn't matter that their capitalists don't control the media and state apparatus (which they somehow disagree with), that they're the only country capable of fighting the fossil fuel lobby, that they've uplifted 800mn people from poverty in 30 years, that they deindustrialized NATO, that they support Iran and are creating the possibility of a multipolar world, that most investments in Africa are in electric infrastructure, that Chinese people overwhelmingly say that they live in a democracy and support their socialist government, that housing is not only not prohibitively expensive but actually prices are going down, that food is incredibly affordable, that they don't engage in imperialist war... Nothing is good enough, they're capitalists because they conform to capitalist mode of production (which isn't even true because like half their economy is state-owned). And they have the guts to tell ME I'm being dogmatic and only seeing black and white, because I dare speak about a model of socialism that doesn't conform to their narrow views.
I swear it's impossible to find socialists in Eur*pe who aren't patronizing, condescending, and honestly fucking racist to global south socialist movements. They literally told me that Cuba "should have industrialized". Like, god fucking damn it, do you SERIOUSLY believe you know better about the possibilities of the economy of Cuba than the people devoting their entire lives to it in the country, supporting and maintaining the revolution throughout the 70 years of murderous embargo? Like, how do you believe you can thoroughly industrialize a 10mn inhabitant island entirely cut from trade with the rest of the world? The Eastern Block could only do this because it had like a fucking third the landmass of Earth and some 400mn inhabitants, and even then they suffered limitations such as lack of access to critical semiconductor technology due to embargo. But no, Cuba is not socialist because it has private hotels for tourists, as if they had any other way to get foreign currency to purchase high-tech medical diagnosis machines and critical energy resources. Fucking bunch of idealist, anti-materialist, condescending pieces of shit!
Just make this argument:
China is by most metrics better than India.
China shares many characteristics with India (large Asian country that was victimized by Western imperialism)
2 means that whatever minor difference between the two countries can explain 1.
Then the question becomes what singular difference between the two country causes one country to have achieved so much while another country continues to struggle. It boils down to either their economic system or their culture.
Arguing that China is capitalist means that it's the culture that makes the real difference since India is also capitalist. Chinese capitalists are apparently big-brained heirs of a 5000 year old civilization while Indian capitalists are pea-brained cow worshipers.
Either the Chinese economic system is supreme versus the Indian economic system or the Chinese people themselves are supreme versus Indian people. I am not a loser Han chauvinist, so I would make the argument that it is the economic system (ie socialism) that makes the difference.
I did make the argument! The response was that socialism isn't when the working class gets the breadcrumbs that come with development, which itself is possible in China because of the special form of state capitalism they have.
Deeply unserious IMO, I asked them why the rest of the capitalist world doesn't shift towards this model seeing how well it works, they simply said it's not how it works and I can't compare the material conditions of China and the west.
If you mentioned a similar nation with a similar population size and similar history like India, somehow I imagine they'd have a million reasons why you can't compare India and China as well.
What a hand-wavy explanation lmao. And it still doesn't explain how or why their "state capitalism" is somehow different.
This feels like a "monkey's paw" sort of thing, you get these western chauvinists to stop hating China, not by seeing China as a socialist state, but by accidentally making them more racist against Indian people.