> it's not a dictatorship.

The explanation given in first year political science was that China is a very rare example of a successful party-based dictatorship, as opposed to a dictatorship based on an individual or family.

A few red families control much of china’s wealth and political power now. It is quickly changing into a more traditional dictatorship.

Well, plenty of the richest people in China has no connection with the red families. The most prominent companies in China now, like Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, are all founded by regular people. Who would have thought Jack Ma would become the richest people in China?

It appears quite many of the richest people in China have no political ties now. In fact most rich people in the past decade are either in tech (there are plenty of them as China's tech industry is not any less vibrant than silicon valley now), or in real estate. Yes, Wang Jianlin is from a red family, but there're many that're not.

Plenty of my alumni from Zhejiang University founded their own companies in China. I don't think they are any different from startup founders here in SF.

This is true, but those people enjoy their wealth only at the sufferance of the party oligarchy; they take their marching orders on any political issue from the party and if they ever challenged the party oligarchy on any issue their wealth would evaporate and / or they would be forced into exile. They don't form a separate locus of power that is separate from the party elite, they're completely subservient to it.

That’s only a small part of the economy. If you at everything from SOEs to taxi companies to jewelry cartels to real estate agencies, it’s mostly all red.

I agree with that assessment. Xi is certainly accelerating the process.