First of all, I want to say that it’s wonderful to see all of you here, and your critical support of the nation I proudly call home. But more and more recently, especially reading through Chinese internet too, there has been a sense of overconfidence and overglorification of China. It is honestly a little worrying at times for me, because as much as I love my homeland and is proud of what we are doing, I know full and well that we are still a long way to go. I see this sentiment of China being the glorious land far away as a bastion and utopia against Western Imperialism and while there’s a lot of truth behind that sentiment, and I definitely understand why one not living in China would choose to believe this (I live in the US now and I understand your pain, fellow US comrades). I just want to remind everyone to exercise dialectal materialism on this subject and try to look at China in a less idealised way. We cannot grow to be better without recognising our mistakes. Anyways that is my little message to you all. Have a nice day!
As a person from the Global South, I think your arguments, while entirely correct, as not as potent as they are when talking to, say, an American or European: countries like Denmark or Sweden have a standard of living so much higher than the average Brazilian’s that the comparison just doesn’t really matter, getting to China’s level would already be a huge achievement. Personally, I don’t want my country to follow the same path to socialism China is on (after all, the material conditions here are entirely different, it would be foolish to try to apply the Chinese experience 1:1), but seeing how much progress you guys have made in such a short time stupefies me. I also really admire China’s enforcement of its national sovereignty. Our government here is completely unable to stand up to meddling by foreign powers (mostly, but not only, the U.S.). Dilma’s impeachment, while not entirely an American initiative, came through their material support, and subsequent governments brought us back under the U.S. tutelage. China is in no way perfect and it still has a long way to go in to fully realise socialism with Chinese characteristics, but I do think there’s a lot Western socialists have to learn from the Chinese experience. It’s why I’m studying the Chinese language and hope to move there soon, to learn more about the Chinese material conditions and what the successes and failures of the CCP.