This is Alex Lo in his daily column-ette "My Take". Lo is anti-American and pro-Beijing. So this is interesting in being upfront about China's dictatorship.
Short version: China is both authoritarian AND vigorously capitalist.
Here he is quoting Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek:
"Let me bring together the three notions from the title [of today's debate]: happiness, capitalism and communism in one exemplary case: China today. China in the last decades is arguably the greatest economic success story in human history. Hundreds of millions were raised from poverty into middle class existence. How did China achieve it? The 20th century left was defined by its opposition to the two fundamental tendencies of modernity: the reign of capitalism with its aggressive market competition and the authoritarian bureaucratic state power.
"Today's China combines these two features in their extreme forms: strong authoritarian state and wild capitalist dynamics. They do it on behalf of the happiness of the majority of people. They don't mention communism to legitimise their rule. They prefer the old Confucian notion of a harmonious society."
Slavoj Zizek
