I’m proudly translating Discover China by my friend Eric Nie into Spanish (Mexico) and Portuguese (Brazil). Today’s story is a short copywriting essence of Chapter 4. If you’d like to go deeper and explore the full journey, I highly recommend Eric’s book ($9.99): https://ericonchina.com/collections/all
Dear Friends,
Walk down a street in Shanghai or Beijing and you might see Gucci, Tesla, and Starbucks — right next to a giant red slogan:
Long live Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
Capitalism and communism, side by side.
For visitors, it feels contradictory.
For locals, it’s normal.
Because in China, ideology and pragmatism don’t cancel each other out.
They coexist.
After 1949, China followed a rigid planned economy. Equality mattered more than efficiency. But by the late 1970s, the system was exhausted. When Deng Xiaoping launched Reform and Opening Up, he didn’t abandon socialism.
He redesigned it.
“Socialism with Chinese characteristics” meant something simple:
Keep political control.
Let the market breathe.
What emerged is a hybrid system — fierce competition inside a Party-led framework.
Private companies run fast.
The state holds the compass.
In Western terms, that sounds impossible.
In Chinese thinking, it’s yin and yang.
Opposing forces maintaining balance.
Alibaba, Huawei, BYD — they innovate like Silicon Valley startups, yet align closely with national goals: AI, green energy, digital infrastructure. The market figures out how. The Party decides where.
Freedom looks different here.
In the West, freedom often means freedom from interference.
In China, it often means freedom from instability.
Many Chinese don’t see state involvement as oppression. They see it as insurance. After decades of chaos and poverty, order feels valuable.
I once had coffee with a Chinese entrepreneur who had just taken his company public. He told me proudly:
“We made hundreds of millions — and we still attend Party meetings.”
I asked if that felt strange.
He smiled.
“We run the company. They run the country. We both want it to work.”
That sentence explains modern China better than any textbook.
Western observers keep asking when China will become fully capitalist.
China answers differently:
We’re not trying to become you.
We’re trying to become ourselves.
In a world obsessed with choosing sides, China built a system that lives in the middle — pragmatic, adaptive, and endlessly unfinished.
Cheers,
Augusto
Founder of Expat Eyes on China
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