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This is a very important part to understanding how the People's Republic of China is indeed as communist as ever. Many look at all the rich people and "private" companies making billions and quickly assume it's a communist country in name only.

But "your" money, "your" property is only as good as your allegiance to the party. The state is letting you "have" it, but ultimately it's theirs. It's only yours if you manage to smuggle it out to the US.

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It’s definitely not communist but the Gongsun Wei Yang’s legalism. Each and every great empire in the history of China took his way of ruling.

It's how power consolidation worked, always. Autocracy, totalitarianism, fascism and communism are all just fancy labels for that very same principle, that there is a power that can and will do whatever it takes to be that power. That's why above a critical mass it's very hard to do anything about these regimes, and it's seems like the best thing is to try to isolate them (North Korea). China is of course different, because global trade. This is - again, of course - a two-sided blade, they are just as dependent on it as the rest of the world, but it likely serves as a very powerful restraint on certain types of escalation.

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