Good morning! Lets talk about CHINA and communism! This is LONG – but worth your time. Back in January, when everyone thought TikTok was about to be shut down by CHY-NA because they wouldnt bend the knee to the U.S. and sell to the highest American bidder, a lot of TikTokers downloaded Red Note (a Chinese lifestyle app thats a cross between Instagram and Pinterest) as a kind of proteSt.
If you missed the TikTok controversy, basically Congress passed a ban with shocking bipartisan efficiency in 2024. Lawmakers claimed Chinas government could force ByteDance to hand over user data, manipulate algorithms for propaganda, and conduct surveillance. What it really proved is that Congress can move very fast – when they agree on an enemy.
They just conveniently ignored the fact that dozens of U.S. companies have already leaked our data, over and over. Anyway, back to Red Note. As more people downloaded and shared content from the app, I made a video basically saying: It doesnt seem that smart to download an app from COMMUNIST CHINA!
Because, like you probably, I only knew the usual talking points:China steals intellectual property. China manipulates currency. China uses forced labor.
Chinas building a military to challenge America. Their tech companies are spy tools. Their communist regime hates freedom.
They spread disinformation. They influence elections. They covered up COVID.
Their students are spies. The Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat to our way of life. Blah blah blah.
Then some dude had the AUDACITY to make a response video calling me out – saying Chinas more of a state capitalist system than communist, and pointing out all the stuff I got wrong. And as it turns out – he was right. I started researching China to defend my video but ended up adding another item to the lifelong list of shit weve been lied to about – right next to drugs, religion, trickle-down economics, wars, the idea that prisons rehabilitate, police protect communities, and American exceptionalism.
Heres what I learned:The Chinese communist boogeyman? Hes not real. But that hasnt stopped politicians from dragging him out of the Cold War closet whenever they need a distraction – like its 1955 and were still hiding under desks waiting for mushroom clouds. Heres the thing – China isnt actually communiSt.
Communism is a classless, stateless system where the means of production are collectively owned and wealth is distributed based on need. China, on the other hand, has 338 billionaires, a state-run stock market, private property, and profit-driven corporations. It controls trillions in state-owned enterprise assets while actively fueling global capitalism through manufacturing and export.
The country invests heavily in consumerism, luxury real estate, and tech startups, all while being governed by an authoritarian party structure that looks nothing like Marxs vision of worker-led collective rule. So no – China isnt communiSt. Its capitalism with Chinese characteristics, and calling it communism is just a lazy excuse to ignore how much it actually mirrors our own system.
Theres no epic clash of ideologies here. Its two global powers running different flavors of state capitalism. And honestly? Only one of them seems to actually help its citizens.
China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty while 11% of Americans still live below the poverty line. They built 45,000 km of high-speed rail. We have none.
Theyre installing more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined. Were still debating if climate change is real. Over 50% of their new car sales are electric.
Ours? Around 10%. Meanwhile, Trump has killed off renewable energy projects and is pushing coal and fossil fuels like thats not whats causing the weather disasters popping up every other week. And yet, every time China does something impressive, our leaders throw a tantrum and reframe it through the communism is bad propaganda lens.
Someone commented on one of my posts yesterday, But the government controls the billionaires in China. I said, Nah – the billionaires control the government. Just like here.
China and the US are really way more alike than different. China props up state-owned enterprises with $63 trillion in assets. We hand out billions through the CHIPS Act, COVID bailouts, and bank bailouts to corporations that spend more on stock buybacks than on their workers.
They call it socialism with Chinese characteristics. We call it economic stimulus. Its all basically the same thing.
And surveillance? Please. Everyone loves to scream about Chinas facial recognition and social credit system. But we have more cameras per capita.
They use the government. We use Google, Amazon, and Meta. Either way – youre being watched, tracked, and mined.
The only difference is we slap a free market sticker on it and pretend its not creepy. Dynasties? Theyve got revolutionary families. Weve got Bushes, Clintons, Kennedys, and now apparently the Trumps ().
Power still flows through family names and Ivy League degrees. Different country, same nepotism. But what about their human rights violations?
Valid point. China has them. But lets not pretend we dont.
They point to our mass incarceration, police brutality, and how we treat Indigenous people. We point to Uyghur persecution, Hong Kong crackdowns, and political prisoners. Its an endless yeah but what about them cycle that lets both governments dodge accountability.
Plus, its hard for me to look down my nose at China knowing how poorly our government has treated its own people. If youre not a white man, youve always been treated like a second class citizen. Not to mention, were the ones that still condone legalized slavery in the U.S. Constitution.
Yes, the current Constitution. So, how did we all come to the same Communism / China bad conclusion? Well. It could be because the U.S. set up a $1.6 billion fund called the Countering PRC Malign Influence Fund to spread anti-China propaganda globally.
Thats double CNNs annual budget – just to make sure you hate China. Same fear factory that gave us WMDs in Iraq and the Gulf of Tonkin. And while all this anti-China rhetoric flies, Wall Street keeps investing billions in their economy.
Universities keep enrolling Chinese students. Corporations keep sending jobs there. Why? Because no one in power actually cares about the ideology.
They care about the money. But they cant criticize their government on social media! Okay – but if we had their Five Guarantee system covering housing, food, clothing, medical care, and burial costs for the elderly – plus near-universal healthcare, massive public housing, 90% urban homeownership, higher ed subsidies, unconditional basic income for the poor, poverty assistance, bullet trains, nationwide digital payments, and government-led green infrastructure investments?
Well – maybe there wouldnt be as much reason to proteSt. Its wild that some peoples idea of freedom is: Sure, our government screws us – but at least we can yell at them about it. Theres a yin and yang to everything.
And lets be honest – China isnt about to get hijacked by a MAGA cult. If weve learned anything over the past decade, its that freedom of speech doesnt mean the government listens – and being allowed to tweet your outrage while everything collapses around you isnt exactly the flex some people think it is. In the end, this whole communism-vs-capitalism theater benefits both sides.
China blames American interference every time their economy stumbles. America blames Chinese communism every time wages stagnate, housing prices spike, or the damn train breaks down again. And both governments get to skip accountability.
Meanwhile, both populations are stuck in systems designed to reward the rich, spy on the poor, and keep dynasties in power. So next time someone says but Chinas communist, ask:If theyre so communist – Why are there more billionaires in Beijing than in London? If were so free – Why does our government spy on us, bail out the rich, and let cops kill over 1,000 people a year?
So whats the takeaway here? Both China and the US are complex entities that cant be distilled into simple terms like good or bad. As smart, informed critical thinkers – we need to start looking at political messaging in a new way – and thats to start thinking about power, not just patriotism – who has it, who wants it, and whos using ideology as a smokescreen.
But China isnt Communist isnt the only thing I want you to get out of this rant. Theres another important takeawayI thought I knew what I was talking about when I called China communist in that TikTok. Then someone corrected me.
So I did my research and I learned I was wrong and admitted it. Because theres no shame in being misinformed. No one can know everything.
Were all having to rethink things that we once considered common sense. Whats actually embarrassing are people who are handed the facts and still cling to their bullshit out of pride.