bjshepard

In almost any category conceivable (police presence on the streets, incarceration weights, bureaucratic oversight), the PRC is significantly more libertarian than the US. It is true that the CIA has invested a tremendous amount of energy and money into political issues designed to delegitimize the CCP -- Tibet, Falun Gong, and Taiwan. Liberalizing speech around these topics would likely be more efficient counterstrategy than the current approach, which is a remnant of an older model of socialist statecraft.

If you understand the population distribution in the PRC, have spent time in a Tier 2 or Tier 3 city, and think deeply about economic growth, the idea that the Chinese economy could "crash" is laughable: there is a vast pool of emerging customers that will continue to fuel growth over the foreseeable future. The question is whether global trends, especially related to climate change driven instability, will interfere in the emergence of the socialist/communist market economy. If you find a contradiction in the conception of a socialist/communist market economy, check Dominic Losurdo's "Has China Turned to Capitalism?—Reflections on the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism" published in the March 2017 issue of International Critical Thought.