I agree with everything you said, except for China not being communist.

The CCP's take is "Mao was 70% right" and officially identifies as communist. Its stated end goal is a communist society. It is in service of this goal that they are taking a capitalistic / globalization route to expanding their Lebensraum. Whether CCP = China I guess is another discussion, but I don't have a strong view there.

Many communists assert that "state capitalism" is a step on the pathway to communism. From an outsider's perspective, we watched a failing communist state open up markets under Deng Xiaoping, and become the fastest rising capitalist power in the world. First, the thing that took the country from being a failed state to the fastest elimination of poverty the world has ever seen was specifically its rejection of communism, which is primarily an economic model. Secondly, there still remains no evidence that the country could ever go back in a communist direction and not lose all of the benefits incurred by a market economy.

They can call themselves communist all they want, but all they have in common with it is the authoritarianism.

A market economy has nothing to do with capitalism. Market economies existed long before capitalism was in practice. Capitalism is an employment model.

As far as crediting their rise due to their economic opening, I’d say that is not reproducible. Not without the agreement of the wealthiest nation in the world to begin massive investment into it. If it were that easy every nation would do it for the same result.

Definitely agree on everything else, and I addressed this more completely elsewhere in this thread but it’s impossible to have a communist country. Communism is anarchy. Leninism is a vanguard state.

>Authoritarianism is possible with most types of government, but is necessary for communism.

Only if the people aren't onboard. The whole idea of communism is with people being onboard (and running soviets, worker councils, etc).

Some not being onboard is OK - communism is about majority rule, not what some person likes or dislikes. In that, it's like any other system. A modern democracy also doesn't care if somebody likes to sell heroin freely, or whether they'd rather have a King.

Even if the majority was initially on board, one could argue that communism inevitably leads to authoritarianism and is necessary for its continuation.

I strongly doubt that a communist system would be ok with everyone not being onboard. It is highly likely that any disagreeing individuals would be classified as bourgeoisie or enemy of the revolution.

Majority rule is authoritarianism...

If you're gay and can't marry who you want because the majority says so, it doesn't matter if the dictator or your peers told you so.

What makes communism necessarily authoritarian, as compared to capitalism (which can be, but is not necessarily authoritarian), is that communism is a prescriptive ideology. It stipulates outcomes regarding distribution of resources, how hierarchies are manifested or not manifested, economic relationships, etc. Capitalism is an ideology of systems, unconcerned with outcomes. This is why communes can exist in capitalist countries, but private enterprises cannot exist in communist countries.

There's always pragmatism though - it's possible to say that your end state involves no workers being alienated from their labour, but to allow it for some large number of years on the basis that it will help you get to a good version of the endstate quicker.

A state that governs with a communist endstate in mind might still be regarded as communist, even if they use capitalist policies to get there.