>>6291What China actually is is incredibly debatable.
Sure, they're "ideologically" communist, but ideology doesn't really matter. Material conditions are what ultimately drive action. And materially, I would argue that China is best described as fascist. In fact, they are actually probably the closest we've ever come to fascism as described by ᴉuᴉlossnW. Instead of eliminating the class antagonisms of Capitalism China has instead sublimated them by adding an additional layer of control on top. The bourgeois may be beholden to the party bureaucracy, but the oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeois nonetheless still exists.
A common objection to this claim is that the bureaucracy of the CPC speaks for the proletariat, but in practice, it really doesn't. The Chinese system is ultimately designed to give high-ranking party members the most control, leading to a system where, because of matrial self-interest, the party makes decisions that favor itself rather than the proletariat it supposedly serves.
This isn't to say that China's system is inherently inferior to Western liberal democracy or anything. But it definitely isn't communism, and if it is, then "communism" as a term is worthless.