Socialism is literally the period of transition between capitalism and communism. It’s expected to still have currency, classes, and the state. Especially as communism isn’t an internal process. Class divisions doesn’t apply purely to internal divisions, just as the state’s role as wielder of violence for one class cannot be limited internally.

You don’t wither away the state, that’s not even what “wither away” means grammatically. It’s an organic process that happens depending on way more factors than the will of the ruling class (wether the proletariat or the bourgeoisie). There is no communism button, and there never was.

Starting to intentionally weaken the state, in a context where class divisons are strong both internally and externally, is probably the best way to get yourself invaded or couped.

Beside, the workers do own the means of production in China. The communist party represents them exclusively. Last time I checked, out of the 2000 members of China’s national Congress, only 2 could be considered capitalists. Additionally the communist party has cells in every major company, and effectively all of the infrastructure and extraction industry is state-owned. Companies have no choice but to comply to will of the CPC, as the latter could simply prevent them from accessing necessary goods or services, and has demonstrated a willingness to execute rebellious CEOs.

China is no less socialist than the USSR, though maybe you would call them state capitalist too, in which case I’m afraid we simply do not have the same understanding of socialism.

Finally, let me end with a few appeals to authority.

Lenin : Source “Within the limits indicated, however, this is not at all dangerous for socialism as long as transport and large-scale industry remain in the hands of the proletariat. On the contrary, the development of capitalism, controlled and regulated by the proletarian state (i.e., “state” capitalism in this sense of the term), is advantageous and necessary in an extremely devastated and backward small-peasant country (within certain limits, of course), inasmuch as it is capable of hastening the immediate revival of peasant farming. This applies still more to concessions: without denationalising anything, the workers’ state leases certain mines, forest tracts, oilfields, and so forth, to foreign capitalists in order to obtain from them extra equipment and machinery that will enable us to accelerate the restoration of Soviet large-scale industry.”

“The dictatorship of the proletariat does not signify a cessation of the class struggle, but its continuation in a new form and with new weapons. This dictatorship is essential as long as classes exist, as long as the bourgeoisie, overthrown in one country, intensifies tenfold its attacks on socialism on an international scale.”

Engel’s “On Authority”

"Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?

Therefore, either one of two things: either the anti-authoritarians don’t know what they’re talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion; or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the movement of the proletariat. In either case they serve the reaction."

Your whole point is terrible. Oppression from the state doesn’t define the economic system. I shouldn’t have to explain this.

The Chinese state hasn’t been helping capital either. It allowed capital to enter parts of the country, monitored it, and when capital investable fucks up, the Chinese state has let said capital either die, or cannibalised it. How can you say they are helping capital in the comments of a news article about how they are letting the whole real estate sector die?

As for your points of socialism:

1. Workers do own the means of production in china. Not fully, but they do. Farming cooperatives alone comprise of more than 100 million households. That’s households, not individual workers. State owned enterprises also dominate the economy, and where they don’t, you typically have worker cooperatives (huwae is a worker coop), or private enterprises which have party members in the board. Truly private enterprises in China make up a remarkably small part of the economy.

2. This point and point 3 are just the result of China being in an early stage of socialism. They have just very recently eradicated extreme poverty. You will start to see the points be addressed in the next few decades.

3. You can’t wither away the state while in the early stages of socialism, or while the world’s biggest state is looking for any opportunity to destroy you.