Most liberals have no real knowledge of China’s political system. They see that China has billionaires and, lacking an understanding of what capitalism actually is, assume that China is capitalist. They’re also heavily influenced by bourgeois anti-China propaganda, which means they have an extremely negative, distorted view of China, and any attempt to explain what China actually is will often be dismissed.

As for whether it’s communist, it depends on definition. Marx had a concept of a lower stage of communism and a higher stage of communism, the latter being a society without classes, money or a state; this is practically impossible to achieve in a single country as long as the threat of imperialism exists. In my experience, “communism” usually refers to this higher stage (with this definition, “communist state” is an oxymoron), and “socialism” refers to the lower stage. With this distinction, there has never been a communist country. China is led by a communist (Marxist-Leninist) party and is in a very early stage of socialism – class distinctions still play a very significant role, but only because the proletarian government temporarily allows it (for a variety of reasons, including to gain access to foreign technology and to appease the imperial core until China was able to withstand sanctions and conventional warfare).