China’s taxation law reforms in the context of ‘market socialism’

Tax is complicated and China’s system is no exception. China is using its tax system as a maze of fiscal valves to rapidly steer its giant economy. We have seen from the earlier chapters that a new form of socialism has entered into China’s official ideology quite recently, allowing the private economy to co-exist with the socialist public economy. In addition to China’s well-documented economic growth rates, today it is also outbound foreign direct investment (OFDI) that attracts particular attention due to its short but spectacular history.1 By allowing mixed economic forms, the CPC has been given the latitude to reform China’s economic and social systems without undermining its leadership or socialist discourse. The rhetoric of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, on one hand, claims the CPC’s adherence to its orthodox ideology of socialism. On the other hand, it legitimizes the party’s arguably non-socialist policies and practices as so-called ‘Chinese characteristics’. The capitalist productive forces that have been promoted can be viewed through one lens of the party as a means to an end, perhaps even a ‘preliminary’ form of socialism.2 Alternatively, it may be argued that the introduction of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ was actually the beginning of the end of socialism.