A revolution can not be “exploited”, you mean Chinese workers? They’re doing incredibly well, and the long-term strategies of SWCC have avoided the fateful low-wage trap that nearly every poorer capitalist global south nation is suffering under. Sources:

Workers rights

• The real wage (IE the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet. The US real wage by comparison is lower in 2019 than it was in 1973.
• Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
• US Life expectancy peaked in 2015, is on the decline, and is now lower than in China. 2
  • How healthcare works in China (refuting a fearmongering NYT video about health care in China).
  • Uninsured Chinese citizens pay an average of $5-7 to see a specialist (the majority of hospital visits ), and with insurance, its free. 95% of Chinese citizens have insurance
• Wages themselves are forced to rise in the private sector by the CPC (+16% every years, +400% since 1980) who force the capitalists to accept the presence of CPC chapters who represent the interest of the workers, increasing workers control even in the capitalist parts of the economy.
• Eliminated Urban Poverty. On track to eliminate all poverty within a decade.
• CGTN documentary - China’s war on poverty
• Trade union laws of the PRC.
• The west views China as one big sweatshop, but the actual working hours aren’t much more than anywhere else. The average for a migrant worker (most vulnerable to exploitation as they are traveling from the countryside) is 8.8 hours, little under an hour more than a typical working day. Labor strikes are rarely suppressed, and usually get the support of the PRC.
• The workplace safety standards of China are better than in the capitalist countries of the West like in Australia who have an higher rate of work related death despite having a GDP per capita 3-5 times higher.
• /u/cheezicle - My experience as a factory worker in a Chinese “sweatshop”
• 70% of Chinese millenials own their own home, and 91% as of 2021 plan to buy their own home within the next 5 years.
• In a typical example of proletarian police accountability, the CPC sentences a police officer to death for killing a pregnant woman in a restaurant in southern China.
• The US is losing to China: “Washington is actually far more corrupt than Beijing. If you want to get something done in Washington, you do what you do in Jakarta: just slip some money to the right people.”
• Hudson and Escobar - The consequences of moving from Industrial to Finance Capital in the US
• Hudson and Escobar - China, the US, Russia - Finance capitalism, Industrial capitalism, and rent seeking

minqi li was a student during 89 and, like many fellow students, took the liberal -> maoist pipeline in the immediate aftermath (the other half went full fash). he now works at university of utah as an economics professor in the wallersteinian tradition and has published several books regarding china’s current and future roles in the capitalist world system.

the tldr from him is that it’s not looking good and that the imperial core of the capitalist system was moving towards china pre-2019. this was in the process of causing a shitload of issues with regards to overproduction as well as the physical limitations of the biosphere that could very much have resulted in the final contradiction of capitalism.

but then covid happened after his last book and maoist hardliners and their policies got a big boost domestically and it’s currently too early to tell in which direction the country will go from here, so who tf knows?

From what I heard, there are capitalists in the lowest rungs of the party, but none above that first level

My opinions are, I’d assume, different from a majority of people here from what I’ve seen. I’m not a fan of China’s socio-economic direction, as you pointed out the reforms enacted have not had the best results for the people of China and the socialist structures of the nation.

I don’t think its fully hopeless though - there are still a fair number of hardline Maoists, and the influence of communism on the nation’s culture definitely can’t be denid. You see a lot of instances where there is definitely potential to return to a more hardline path that is willing to confront capital directly rather than try to work inside of the system.