How does the Chinese government even work

Oh boy. I don't think I'm remotely an authority on this and I guess I will be downvoted to hell... but here goes nothing

PRC (China) is an one-party state led by the communist party (CCP, CPC, Gongchandang... whatever); there is no opposition party because they got driven to Taiwan and became today's ROC. That means, present day the CCP is the Chinese government, and the Chinese government is the CCP. There's no real democracy since there's only one party
China has always been authoritarian for its entire history. CCP started as a far-left authoritarian Marxist/Leninist party, and later became a... Maoist party. I don't think there is any party currently in the world that is Maoist (probably better to keep it that way), although there could be some fringe Marxist/Leninist parties somewhere
After Mao died and the subsequent mayhem subsided, the successors still hang on to the communist/socialist naming schemes (where the socialism with Chinese characteristics or something came from), but have mostly adapted a blend of state capitalism and free market capitalism models, especially on the economic front. In practice, that means that China is very free-market, but most of the largest companies are either fully or partially owned by the CCP. The past few chairmen before Xi massively tuned down on the authoritarian scale because no one wanted another Mao. Culturally, Marxism is anti-religion so CCP purged a lot of folk religion and Confucianism, so ironically China might be culturally more progressive than their East Asian neighbors...
Funnily enough, even though there is no democracy, a lot of Chinese emperors/dictators tried to be benevolent dictators. Because China's social contract is kind of like "we give away our freedom but demand prosperity in return". If China ever becomes not prosperous, the people are known to revolt and overthrow the government; happened a dozen or so times in recorded history. So CCP does still have somewhat of an incentive to try and not screw over its people too much
China did retain some socialism stuff, notably: planned economy in 5-year increments, citizens technically can't own property (but can "lease" for 70 years...), heavily state-sponsored public infrastructure, universal high-quality education... But at the same time China's actual economy is also insanely unequal and highly resembles a free-market, anything goes model. Again, more like the US than anything else
On the other side of the equation, the lives of the average citizen in China is... surprisingly similar to those in the US, despite everything. It's just that China basically has their own version of everything the "Western world" has, because China's economy and internet are quite walled off. If anything, maybe Chinese citizens have a bit more of a pent-up anger? Since you are thrown into a metaphorical meat-grinder but can't even protest... I think the pent-up anger shows up on Chinese social media a lot if anyone is interested. But that's pretty much it

I'm not a political scientist so I probably missed a lot... but that's the gist I think. If you are asking about how the actual government is organized, I think Wikipedia explained it way better than anyone on Lemmy could, and honestly it is not as exotic as most would think (there are a lot of parallels to governments of most democracies)

I don’t think there is any party currently in the world that is Maoist
There is some in Nepal iirc. I'm sure there is other maoist parties, but they're fringe.
I like the description of "we give you our freedom but we expect prosperity" its honestly extremely accurate

Okay so you and a lot of people on .world might not like this because I am using an explicitly communist source, worse an explicitly communist wiki but I have read a good chunk of the source material here and don't feel like rewriting all of it when I can just link it. Anyway here are some links that should be informative if you want to understand the philosophies that guide the CPC and the structure of its state.

Socialism With Chinese Characteristics

Reform and Opening Up

Socialist Market Economy

People's Republic of China

I ask you to be curious. Investigate the claims you see here, look at the sources used and judge them for yourself. I know you are not likely to be receptive to the communist perspective, most people are not and I am not trying to make you a communist through this. Its just that communists put a lot of time and effort into critically understanding other communists and their projects. Its a lot to investigate, don't expect to read or understand it all in one night. It is going to be difficult to have a fully developed understanding of the Chinese system without reading some books just as any other government but these should suffice for most use cases. Good luck ❤️

Prolewiki is downright revolting. Have a gander at their North Korea/South Korea page.
As a South Korean myself I'd rather let people get informed about our country from a 4chan racist edgelord than a prolewiki page. At least one knows they're being a harmful idiot
Interesting, didn't know that such a wiki existed. No article on anarchocommunism there, though.
- Because it's about as ~~communist~~ anarchist as natsoc is socialism.
No TLDR tho?
- The links are the TLDR imo

Think of the USA but now remove all political parties and just make One party, remove state governments and make them all federal. So every state has the same laws across the nation. When it's time to vote, democracy is very limited and federally controlled.

Some red flags of the CCP, because this is what trump and maga wants for the US ultimately. A CCDI which purges political rivals. Increased federal control which limits freedom of speech , expression and independent institutions.

Also imagine a HUGE increase in censorship online. Republicans are also doing this now in the US with porn sites as well as locally forcing bibles and the ten commandments in schools.

What's funny though, even with all this Chinese still has a generally free healthcare system for its citizens and pretty good quality of life overall. Something apparently no US leader could ever achieve.

Well that's my understanding of it. I could be wrong about some things. I could be missing some things. I live in the US so I only know what I can research and learn.

Chinese still has a generally free healthcare system for its citizens
Nope. There is no "free healthcare" according to my parents' direct experience in Guangzhou (广州) and also various relatives. (At least not around the time we left) Everything requires pre-payment, even emercency procedures.
good quality of life overall.
Not really, especially not if you have a rual Hukou. To be fair, it did get a lot better compared to imperial dyansties or warlords era right after Xinhai revolution, but its not that good compared to most western countries. One of the biggesr problems is food safety. Work place safety is also a huge problem, and pay is low, no overtime extras, no vacations for most jobs. Employers frequently delay payments with no consequences. Not really a place you wanna live in.
There's a reason why my parents left the country. (And then now here in the US, we have this wannabe dictatorship thing happening all over again 🫠 wonderful*, isn't it?)
*sarcasm
The most glaring issue with their healthcare or other benefits is that the decision to have those things at all comes down to one party or even one man. That means there is nothing at all stopping those things from being taken away on a whim.
- China seems very stable to me. Their government is afraid of making people angry, and removing basic help like that is very likely to make people angry.
  But also, it seems to me that the "generally" in "generally free" is doing some work. AFAIK, some care is free, some care isn't. And the pretty good quality of life doesn't seem to be universally distributed. Both of those seem to be improving quickly, but the "people are better than in the US" impression one may take from that comment seems to be a misrepresentation.
- Yes but at the same time the population would likely be very VERY pissed.
China does have other political parties though, to an extent
Chinese regions can have differing laws.
Healthcare isn't free.
You didn't explain anything about how they work just some of the things that they do. You also are wrong in some ways.
So every state has the same laws across the nation. When it's time to vote, democracy is very limited and federally controlled.
What about the autonomous districts?
Thanks you! I didn't know most of that
Sounds good. I'm in if the "One Party" isn't either of the two shitty options majority voters have been 69ing for the last century. Everyone wants change so long as nothing changes.
- I agree with that. The only problem is we're all opinionated now and the US is hardcore split into two. I say republicans have their land, democrats have theirs. Like North and South Korea. Let trump be the Alabama diddler leader and I'd give the northern parts to Gavin Newsom. Or Arnold again. Let Arnold run things

Imagine China as a company. There is a board of directors, and Xi is the head of that board. The board runs a lot of lower ranking boards that control all the aspects of government operation.

Have a problem with your plumbing? Go to your local province or city board. A whole region experiencing drought? The regional board has an action plan that they impose on the local boards to implement with government regional help. Xi is responsible for steering the overarching policy of China moving forward as a country. His role is to say “make China control the South China Sea and receive deference from those countries” to the military, and then it’s their problem to figure out how to harass shipping.

You get promoted to higher boards for good work, and the board votes for its leader. Read Xi’s promotion history. I would die after that many years of office politics, myself.

Read Xi’s promotion history.
Do not believe everything that you read, especially if it is history of very powerful persons.
- I mean usually yes, but in the history in question here is public and very easy to confirm.
I guess a company model does make sense considering the toilet paper ads
This kinda makes sense. There are plenty of stories of Chinese officials overstepping.

It's capitalism, but the government does it's job and hammers down companies that get too big to fail

There's also all the one party authoritarian bullshit, but main concept is the government remain the strongest power

I wish I had a source on this, but I heard that bribery of government officials is the norm. They don't get paid much so it's expected they take bribes. But their bosses keep them in line. And the weird thing is that it actually works kind of well to make sure things get done, compared to the gridlock faced when trying to build houses or public transit in most cities in the US.

It's true afaik. Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi
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Don't they execute people for this these days. I was there a few months ago and there are "anti corruption education centres" and I do know of executions for this coming from anecdotal sources

I don't know. However I do see China able to pull their country together and achieve more as people are aligned, be it forced or not, having a common goal allows the country to do things other countries struggle with. Like the push for in house technologies and cheap renewable energy.

I feel like Western countries are grid locked in turmoil and in-fighting which prevents progress.

Imagine America except u have only 1 party the president is appointed for life and their are no limits on what the president can do.