It depends on how you use the terms ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’. If you equivocate with either of these terms them it becomes unclear what you’re talking about. People often equivocate in these discussions between meaning ‘is the society/economy socialist/communist’ and ‘are the CPC ideologically communist’.

By the very definitions of communist and socialist economies, China is not a socialist, let alone a communist society, nor do they claim to be either, as the mode of production is not socialist, as the means of production are not directly under the socialized, democratic control of the proletariat. The base is not socialist.

Superstructurally it is a different issue, though related, because to the extent that a communist or socialist superstructure exists is very much a product of the far more radical Maoist era. Whether they CPC, or members of it, are ideologically communist or socialist is another, dinstinct but closely related (due to the fact that we should try classify the socio-economic mode of production in terms of the structure of the base, superstructure, and the nature of their dialectical relation to eachother) question to the economic one. An issue with being able to know this is that the internal workings of the CPC are very opaque. Here it perhaps becomes closer to a matter of faith, though reducing it to that is a bit facile imo. The only indication we can possibly be have are the actual externally visible economic, social and foreign policies of the current CPC, in which case it is undeniably a very mixed bag (especially when it comes to foreign policy; funding both the Palestian authority and the Israeli IDF is not socialistic by any stretch of the imagination, not matter how far certain people might want to desperately stretch their interpretation of it through mental gymnastics whereby they’re somehow playing both sides in a historically progressive way; if China started actively supporting revolutionary movements and foreign leftists more seriously then people on this site who otherwise forgive their policy through real-politik interpreted as historically progressive foreign policy would champion it, but you can’t have it both ways).

You can also, however, see a large shift in the ideology of Chinese society. Take economics departments for instance: they are still dominated by Neoclassical economics, which is deeply bizarre for a society claiming to be guided by Marxism, given that the former is a form of economic though which naturalizes capitalist relations and thus acts as a form of mystification with respect to the actual workings of the economy.

Overall I really don’t think that anyone outside the higher levels of the CPC really has much of an idea whether or not the country is heading towards a real socialist transition. It’s also important to underline the fact that simply because it might be transitioning away from what we have historically meant or understood by capitalism, does not necessarily mean that it is transitioning to socialism. To know that, you have to actually look at the transformations at the level of its socio-economic and political structures and institutions, and how people are incentivized to behave economically. You get conflicting reports and opinions from Chinese people themselves, which is, in and of itself, possible evidence that the country does not have a fully radical, socialistic or communist form of democracy, if there is huge difference of opinion between alot of people from the country as to what the actual long-term plan economic plan of the CPC is.

All of this if ofc independent of the necessity to combat Sinophobia and to deconstruct anti-Chinese propaganda, and also for the purposes of promoting the idea that multipolarism is preferable and that anti-imperialism (which today is largely, but not entirely, American and western European) should be combated as the most serious form of capitalist exploitation and the most serious political obstacle to radical politics, but we should not be making ourselves look stupid or insane by slipping from that to having an overly rosy view of what China has become. People are not stupid. They can tell often tell when that slip occurs and it delegitimizes the serious part of what we say about China in their eyes. So it’s not even good politics, and practically counterproductive.

I’d also add that Rojova is not really anarchist, no more so that the Zapatistas.