You can talk about what terms to use,
Yes. We can, and we should, because talking about the U.S. as if it is a
laissez faire state is blatantly misleading.
but we're screwed comparatively is the point.
Why? What do you have to prove that we're "screwed"? The U.S. eventually plateaued in terms of economic potential, China will as well, and likely before surpassing the U.S. That aside, why would having a second economic superpower be a wholly bad thing?
Also I assure you, China's about the most communist you're gonna get. If they call Obama a communist, then China's a million times that.
I dearly hope you're joking. Even back under Mao China wasn't exactly a model of party-line Marxism, and these days it's more of a bizarre sort of mixed-economy totalitarian state that has eased back a bit after figuring out that holding the leash too tightly just screws things up. Also, as noted, Cuba. And the only people that genuinely see Obama as a communist (rather than using the term as propaganda) are the people that also think that the aliens are watching them and that airliner contrails are chemical weapons.
Thinking on it, there's... something innately hilarious(ly hypocritical) about a(n ostensibly) capitalistic society seeming to be afraid of competition on the global scale. Maybe it's just me. But that seems like it's got a really good punchline somewhere in it.
It's because, lip service aside, capitalism has always been about the haves excusing their double-fisted grabbing of more. When you're raking in money it's only natural that you don't want anyone else butting in.