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Are China's economic fundamentals sound? Do they not have a problem with cooked books and all the usual problems of a command economy that can make everything look like it's absolutely splendid until it's not? Do they not have their own demographic issues?
I am not "incurious" or saying I don't think China is a first world power. Of course it is. I am not "looking down" on them. Their technological progress, and their prodigious transformation since the days of the Cultural Revolution, is truly impressive. But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of rot underneath. Or that they have already become the future hegemon, however much they may intend it.
There is a lot of ruin in a country, as they say- the West, and the US, are arguably coasting now until our own wheels come off, and China may be able to coast longer. Who knows? But it bemuses me that people who are quick to point out all the rot eating away at the West, despite us still being, in most respects, in a much superior position (which I do think is near a tipping point), take every piece of knob-slobbering news about Sino-ascendancy and their roaring economy and industrial output at face value. Because, good gosh, at least they aren't "woke."
They do but atleast they're producing physical goods instead of a weird vibe-based service model that inflates the fuck out of the value of basic requirements for living. The Chinese are largely housed (since the government decided to batter the fuck out of the upper-middle class by reigning in their property appreciation), the demographic issue is there but the Chinese elderly don't have the same ability to distort the economic system by demanding massive accommodation and they seem to be somewhat trying to maintain a society that actually builds things.
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Absolutely. The world's strongest talent pipeline, the world's most competitive market, the world's best infrastructure. Some things like capital markets need major work, but they are simply the least bullshit large economy on Earth.
It's not really a command economy, their state plans are guidelines. What does happen is, for example, suboptimal investment due to provinces rushing to fill the quotas and creating unproductive competition. The cooking is not a big contributor at this point.
The US has no experience dealing with a competent adversary, so I understand reaching for a cached example, but it's laughable to compare them and their problems to the Soviets. Soviets exported… crude oil and timber, so I guess they were about as advanced an economy as Canada. Chinese export, for example, humanoid robots to work at Airbus and Texas Instruments. Is this all a big Potemkin village? Is everyone in the West just bribed (with money created by deficit spending probably) to purchase inferior goods and help Xi save face? Maybe, but then that means that Western economies and societies are inferior in another way, if they're vulnerable to such tactics. Personally I think it's mostly about productivity.
The nature of the rot is what is in question. I will not deny stuff like oppressing Christians (though I will say that the specific Christians oppressed last time were revealed to be the Zion Church, with family members in American anti-China think tanks, and are obviously part of the US-Zionist intelligence network; more grassroots Christians also sometimes get stomped on). I could write about involution, or about the insanity of LGFVs, or cratering fertility and nearly South Korean gender animosity. But those are specifically Chinese issues. They are largely immune to «generic Communist» strains of rot because they are not generic Communists, have a completely unique system and can only be properly understood as their own civilization.
China's barely communist by the definition of other systems. Even Mao's historical status inside China is in a weird spot where he's praised but also essentially nobody agrees with the cultural revolution and the worst excesses of his reign. I'd also rather have too heavyhanded handling of religious issues than the current Western meme of 'let the Islamists do whatever'
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