Yea, cause east Asians are the poor and uneducated asians right.
Any developing nation has pollution this included US and Britain in the past. But don't worry, China will soon be moving factories to India and the rest of poorer Asia, so the pollution will go with it.
Communism is all but dead, no Chinese is a true communist, except maybe some idiot in the mountains.
The one child policy is not a problem, all China needs to do is to move to a skilled work force that requires less people. It will stagnate the Chinese economy, but by then it will be big enough to be a superpower anyways.
As to rising inequality, the interior will be developed now that the coastal areas are doing good, and with Russian and the former soviet block's energy, the interior's living standard will rise.
As a side note, rising inequality happens everywhere, it's only a real problem if the bottom can't feed themselves and have no shelter, and basic needs not met. This isn't the case with most of China and soon won't be the case at all.
I know China doesn't do general election, but they also don't pick a name out of a box. The leader must be able to balance all side's interests to even have a chance to be the president.
Besides at this point Xi Jinping's power is severely limited, any one person cannot dictate state affairs. Xi is a civilian president, which means all he is to the army is its commander not its master. He is not the revolutionary leader Mao is and thus not as much influence.
Today's China is not dictatorship in the traditional sense, the state nor party belongs to Xi, he is merely it's figurehead. It is not possible to achieve dominance like Mao or Stalin or even Putin with 10 year terms that can't be extended and certainly not possible with the way the Chinese people are. They are no longer poor back watered uneducated can't feed themselves rubes that they once were.
The fact that you think it is possible for China to have a president that can have enough power to alter the current course of China is absurd. It just shows you how little you know of politics and dictatorship, or China.
Communism is not dead. Communism, like all economic systems, will undergo change, adaption and optimization over a period of time. Ultimately, the Chinese's goal has always been building a better nation, rather than achieving a specific political ideology.
The pure central planning system is good for the first twenty years because the country simply doesn't have much stuff. By strictly controlling the distribution system, the government ensures that the minimum need of the people is met. However, as the country becomes better established, there are much more things to manage. Central planning simply doesn't have the processing capacity to micro-manage all the little details. This is where the private sector comes in. They are here to take care the things the central government just don't have the time to manage, so the central government can focus on the important stuff. For example, nowadays, the central government mainly focus on energy, military, public infrastructure, and education. These sectors are either too vital for the national security or require too much investment to be handled by the private sector.
Too many people are focusing on the wealth distribution part of communism. Just like people are single minded focused on profit for capitalism and social welfare for socialism. This is likely because these are the most physically tangible aspect of the system for ordinary people. However, at the core, these economic system is something else entirely. For example, capitalism, at the core, is about survival of the fittest. Capitalism argues that the better economy system is the one that can best survive the intense competition; therefore, competition should be encouraged at all times. Socialism, however, argues that competition in some sectors does more harm than good. The government should be entrusted to take care these sectors. Communism, being a subbranch of socialism, take this one step farther and argue that the best economy system is the one that centrally organized so everything can cooperate together like a precise mechanism.
So for China, while some of the concepts from communism is found to be not suitable, a lot of others are instead found immensely useful. For example, China's core stock market is strictly regulated to minimize the risk of financial crisis. This proves to be extremely useful since both 97 and 08 financial crisis barely have any direct impact on the Chinese economy. (Most of the impacts felt by China are secondary, such as export reduction due to declining economy of trade partners.)
So in summary, no, communism is hardly dead. It just evolved to better suit China's need.
A small note at the end, the economy reforms performed by Deng near the end of 70s did not come from thin air. China spent more than a decade making related preparations. For example, Mao's intra-party report in 1962 mentioned that consumer goods production and trading are vital parts of the economy and should be encouraged. Towards the end of 60s, the Chinese industrial base has developed to a level that global competition becomes possible. The improvement in China-US relationship during 70s paved the way for farther connection between China and western market. So by the time Deng was in charge, China already made the preparations and the reforms were just the next logical step. While there was definitely some shift in priority during those times, overall it was hardly unexpected.
