It also overlooks that China has historically been conquered by outside forces as its leadership grew weak. And the Communist party was having enough trouble internally feeding its people and causing issues like the “break four olds” period that there was little ability to wage effective war.
Let’s also not forget the the communists literally aided the Japanese in the rape of Nanking as it helped to undermine the GuoMinDang.
To have one ready out of the box with linux maybe look at the System76 offerings? https://system76.com/
Edit: just got a chance to check and they are slightly above your $1000 criteria. So maybe on his recommendation.
Pop has been Rock solid for me and steam gaming. Trivial to set up and the store is wonderful too. Nice that it works great for non gaming tasks as well.
Ubuntu broke with my Nvidia card. I went to PopOS and the problems stopped.
I use PopOS on my rig which is primarily gaming. It does great and gets out of my way.