If America truly wanted to ‘beat’ China they would join them. That's how China ‘beat’ America. As Sun Yefang said, “I believe that we have to study capitalist economics, not only for the sake of knowledge alone but also to acquire concrete research tools and methods.” If you think this is a contradiction to Marxism, I invite you to read Capital, or at least the title of it. Ignorance is not bliss, and arrogance is a death-wish.

In the 1980s, Uncle Deng was standing atop Chairman Mao's hard-won industrial base, trying to figure out WTF to do with it. China had productive capacity, but it wasn't economically deployed, and they could already see the Soviet Union going sideways. At that point, Deng encouraged “making up missed lessons” including from ‘poisonous’ capitalists. After all, you need a bit of poison to make an antidote.

Deng's question was, “Why can’t we develop a market economy under socialism?” and his answer was yes, that “we must move ahead in building a socialism which is truly superior to capitalism.” With that attitude in mind, significant latitude was given in terms of ideology. As Uncle Deng said, “It does not matter if it is a yellow cat or a black cat, as long as it catches mice.” As Isabella Weber (whose excellent book this whole post is cribbing from) said,

As Deng had proclaimed in 1975, the real enemies in his eyes were not “capitalist roaders”—Deng himself was denounced as one—but those who “still use metaphysics” and “talk only about politics but not economics; only about revolution not production” (Selden, 1979, 142). In the Deng era, catching up through reform now meant “making up missed lessons” (补课) in economics, both in Eastern European reform theories and in bourgeois economics, which had previously been condemned as “capitalist poison.

This is the key lesson from the Deng era, not that China became capitalist (as Americans lazily propagandize because they read The Economist once), but that they had their own economists and developed their own economics. China truly developed socialism with Chinese characteristics through constant experimentation and adaptation, not just theory but practice (‘crossing the river by feeling for stones’). This is the ‘reform and opening up’ process which continues to this day. As Jiang Zemin said in 1992,

Whether the emphasis was on planning or on market regulation was not the essential distinction between socialism and capitalism. This brilliant thesis has helped free us from the restrictive notion that the planned economy and the market economy belong to basically different social systems, thus bringing about a great breakthrough in our understanding of the relation between planning and market regulation.

Or as current Chairman Xi Jingping said in 2012,

In carrying out reform and opening up, we must have the courage to free our minds, but freeing our minds must be done with an orientation, a standpoint, and underlying principles; so too in reform and opening up. Some claim that reform and opening up means moving toward the “universal values” and the political systems of Western countries; otherwise, it cannot be called reform and opening up. This is a complete misinterpretation...

As the world develops and society advances, failure to reform and open up would lead us to a dead end. Similarly, carrying out reform and opening up in a way against a socialist orientation would also lead us to a dead end. We must, therefore, remain keenly aware of the direction in which we are heading, namely to keep improving and developing socialism, not to set out on a different path.

Basically free your mind, but don't let it fall out your behind. The Communist Party of China has consistently learnt from every possible source without losing themselves in the process. As Adrian Wood, the principal World Bank economist they invited over in the 1980s said, “The Chinese were very careful to distinguish between the views of the World Bank and their own views; they always kept a clear division, this is you and this is us… The Chinese Communists, despite being on a different ideological planet from the World Bank, knew exactly how to handle the relationship, which was very friendly, highly cooperative, but arm’s length.”

In this way, China did not try to ‘beat’ America, which is a uniquely western perception, fearful as they are of their own colonial shadow. The greatest western fear is the golden rule being applied to them, that others would do unto them as they have done. Western propaganda is really projection, what if they were like us, genociding, invading, debt-trapping, and dropping nukes on people? Everything bad they say about China is really a reflection. Every accusation is a confession. But that's not China. China is China, which needs to be understood on its own terms, in its own words.

For the past 40 years, China has literally minded its own business while America has been mindfucking their own population and literally bombing. The CPC set ambitious goals for themselves and strived without tearing others down. Deng set a target for mid this century to “say with assurance that socialism is really superior to capitalism,” and they've done it with speed. The young American streamer IShowSpeed, for example, recently visited China with an open mind and had his mind blown.

Speed is an effusive character, affectionately called Hyperthyroid Brother in China. On his tour, Speed flew in flying cars, floated in floating cars, and jumped in jumping cars. He bought one of those cars, three Huawei trifold phones, trained with Shaolin monks, ate lots of food, and interacted with lots of people across many hours of livestreaming. This presented a certainly planned but still unfiltered view of China many westerners have not seen through the veil of propaganda.

Remember that western propaganda is directed at its own populations, to make them tolerate their hated governments by hating someone else more. But China is actually chill, as Speed has shown by just walking around. Socialism has comprehensively proved that it's a better governance and production system, while capitalism is comprehensively fucking itself. Speed livestreamed people living their best lives in China, while America has been livestreaming nothing but the worst death in Gaza. One rando dude simply walking around China is enough to pierce the veil of ignorance, if the hail of bullets that killed young Hind Rajab didn't inform you that these people are lying to you.

If America sincerely wanted to regenerate they would listen to their young and stop killing children. Younger generations do not reflexively hate China, because that's racist and dumb. China doesn't actually propagandize much at all, but people can see that the technology is better and that they're not bombing anyone. Actions speak louder than words, and one American livestreaming can undo billions of dollars worth of American propagandizing.

Even if Americans are committed to fearing China, all the more reason to incorporate their higher technology and learn from it. This is what China did after their century of humiliation, but America is still in that pride before the fall period, where they're proud of falling. America is furiously trying to beat back the tide of history with tariffs, instead of letting China's rising tide lift their boats also. As the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But as modern Americans say when encountering something very American, what are we, a bunch of ASIANS?

Americans are the most propagandized people on earth, and this deep programming makes it very difficult for them to learn anything. Many westerners (America, UK, Europe, it's all one White Empire) will proudly regurgitate propaganda at the dinner table. They really don't see how rude it is to casually disrespect other countries, and how badly informed they are. American media almost never lets China speak for itself, instead employing a class of professionally wrong people to explain something they don't understand and are not even curious about. America has, as the Notorious BIG warned against, gotten high on its own propaganda supply, and are now overdosing on it.

Now I am not here to administer Naloxone to the throne. America was born bad and they're breaking bad, good riddance to bad rubbish as far as I'm concerned. I hope America chokes on their own vomit and croaks. I'm happy, like Walter White, to just watch the death of White Empire with some satisfaction.

This article says America ‘should’ join China, but if I'm being honest, I hope they don't. America reinventing capitalism with American characteristics would imply the reinvention of America, and I can't think of anything worse. I don't expect anything from America. As Goldfinger told James Bond, No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” There is no point talking to people that don't listen, especially while they're killing children. There is no point reasoning with Donald Trump, or even the Democrats, who follow the same line with more hypocrisy and hyperbole. I do this for academic purposes and to dickishly say I told you so.

The hard historical fact is that America is a colony while China is a civilization, and America cannot become civilized no matter how hard they try. And they're really not trying at all. America would rather go down the way they came up, in a flurry of barbarity, brutalizing the native people of Palestine, slandering heroes like Hamas and Yemen's Ansarallah, and spreading lies about the true leader of the free world, China, which leads by example rather than coercion.

To learn one must have a basic level of respect for the teacher, and Americans simply cannot yet understand this. They cannot understand that China is not their enemy and that even if they were, that there is no greater teacher than the enemy (as Mazer Rackham said). As Tony Soprano said, those that want respect, give respect, and America gives and increasingly gets none. They're more Rodney Dangerfield than Deng Xiaoping. They meet their fate on the highway they take to not avoid it at all.

The rest of the world, inshallah, is just moving on, albeit under a hail of bullets and potential nuclear shroud. To paraphrase Gramsci said, the old world is dying and the new world is struggling to be born, now is the time of morons. China still offers them an open hand, but America slaps it away quite proudly. But you know what pride goeth before. Americans call it ‘buying the dip’ but, no, it's the fall. America would rather die ignorant and arrogant, and so it does. This is why I hope America doesn't join China. China is successful, and America deserves to fail.

I've adopted the fundraiser for Muhammad and his family in Gaza. If you're able, give them support, a loan to God is surely doing yourself a favor.

Read:
How China Escaped Shock Therapy (🏴‍☠️)
Isabella M. Weber;