On the one hand, hooray for supporting the development of infrastructure in Africa and stuff. On the other hand, booooo for being a top trading partner with the Zionist Entity, and selling drones to Indonesia, and all that.

So what the Hell do you make of it all! Like I get that there's this term called "realpolitik" which is somehow relevant, but I'd like a longer explanation than just one word. Like how does the good and the bad fit together at its core?

You could certainly write tomes about this topic — many people have done exactly that — and maybe I'm being a bit incurious to expect someone to serve me a quick answer on a silver platter instead of diving into as many articles and PDF books as I can get my hands on... But I'm also just kind of tired of having such extremely underdeveloped views on the most populous AES state and country in general, after I came to unlearn or mistrust whichever views I'd had on China previously.

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[–] Erika3sis@hexbear.net 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

China is a large semi-peripheral country that attempted to implement a market economy, without abandoning its proletarian dictatorship, in order to develop its productive forces. That's the elevator pitch and about where my understanding ends. So I couldn't confidently speak at all as to the differences between how the economy worked in different periods.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Okay! That's a good place to start. I'm not a China expert, but have been digging into it myself over the last few months because I had similar questions.

Essentially, from the POV of the modern CPC, growth was positive, but unstable towards the end of the Mao era and with the Gang of Four. During the Cultural Revolution, there was a real drive to achieve Communism soon, and this led to some degree of dogmatism over practicality. Deng adjusted, and set up an economy along with Zhou Enlai that would fold in foreign Capital while maintaining absolute supremacy, and leaving key sectors like energy, banking, steel, etc. Completely state owned, or close to it.

All along the way, the PRC watched the Soviet Union. They split, they sort of revonvened, and then the USSR fell. The PRC did not want to follow in the same footsteps, so they adopted a different policy with foreign policy. They shifted, along with Deng, to a more open form of foreign policy based on the concept of "mutual development."

Under Xi, there has been a leftward shift, with the official line being that both Mao and Deng were principled Marxist-Leninists and that a balance of the two is what is correct. This extends to foreign policy, the economy, and more. Under Xi, there has been increasing control over the markets, trapped in a "birdcage model," and BRICS and the BRI serve as driving factors towards destabilizing Imperialism without open conflict with the United States (though, if you ask me, such an event is very likely). They also always stand there for any AES country that comes into existence, so that others will not be alone, though they don't assist with revolution the way the USSR did.

That serves as a massive oversimplification, and maybe didn't even tell you anything new, but hopefully it helped!