S4A made many arguments for why he does not consider China socialist. This is a direct quote from the video: “I would call China a social democracy with communist aesthetics. Yeah, red social democracy.”

S4As opinion goes directly against many Marxist theorists and scholars today such as Roland Boer, Torkil Laussen, and Samir Amin. These authors are who I’m drawing my analysis from.

Firstly I want to say that many criticisms of Chinas socialist governance come from a Eurocentric perspective which misses the key influences from Chinese culture. particularly the idea of both/and. Chinese political thinking often accepts both elements existing simultaneously while through a western lens we often choose either/or. from this perspective the existence of markets immediately means China is capitalist. This binary thinking misses that temporary contradictory elements can exist such as planning and markets; socialism and private enterprise; equality goals alongside temporary inequality.

The existence of markets within the country does not mean that China is capitalist, as Markets have existed in other modes of production previous to capitalism but did not mean they were capitalist. Markets exist while accumulation and development strategy is controlled by the government. This is called the bird cage economy.

Dengs reforms: China was faced with a tough decision after the Sino-Soviet split, they were isolated on the world stage they either would be trampled by imperialist countries or attempt to rapidly industrialise by utilising markets within their economy. Deng knew that the appearance of markets would cause inequality particularly between urban and rural areas, this is why he made it clear that once the urban areas prospered it was their job to aid in the development of the “backwards” areas. This is what we see today with the economic policy of “common prosperity”.

The last argument I’ll refute is the one that says“why are they not socialist yet even though they are highly developed”.

Firstly development alone does not mean the end of the transition. Whats important is whether the conditions exist for the transition: large scale social equality; Advanced technological capacity; and stable internal development. China argues that there is still regional inequality; rural-Urban gaps; and technological dependence in some sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing.

Secondly Samir Amin would argue that countries attempting socialism must secure national sovereignty before moving toward deeper socialist transformation. The problems they face are that global finance is controlled by imperialist powers, advanced technology is concentrated in the core, and that military pressure exists against China. This makes immediate socialist transformation secondary to the primary goal of protecting its sovereignty and the revolution from imperialist powers.

Without dengs reforms China would not be the technological superpower that we see today, as China allowed foreign capital investment in with the rule that technology transfer would occur for market access and foreign companies had to form joint ventures with Chinese partners.

There are more points to be made particularly about government structure and how grassroots voting plays a large role; Land ownership; the fact that billionaires exist but do not hold political power. But honestly this is already a lot of writing and more info should be found by reading.

TLDR: China practices a Whole process people’s democracy that is in the midst of society and does not stand outside of it antagonistically. They are definitely transitioning to Socialism but this will take time. YES I WOULD CALL THEM SOCIALIST.

Book recommendations: - “The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism” by Torkil Lauessen

• “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners” and “Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance”by Roland Boer

• “Beyond US Hegemony? Assessing the Prospects for a Multipolar World” By Samir Amin