China is not best understood as a communist country, or as fascist. China is modernist. Many western countries were modernist between 1920 and 1960. Now they are postmodernist. Modernists believe that sociology is a field of engineering, postmodernists think it's a moral opinion.
Fascism, imperialism, communism were results of modernist ideas: society has to be constructed, and making an omelet requires breaking eggs. Postmodernist societies don't construct, but mitigate and manage existing constructs. Instead of paradigmatic thought, they prefer methods.
Arguably, it's much safer to live in a society that has its modernist phase well behind it. But in the pandemic response, we will also observe and compare the different ways in which modernist and postmodernist societies deal with existential threats.
Is a postmodernist society able to lock down a city? Can it create hospitals in a few days? Can it quickly produce lots of ventilators, CT scanners, protective equipment? Can it train nurses? Can it lift regulations where they get in the way? Or is it just playing theatre?
