Genuine question so please don’t hate on me. It seems to me that china now is more of a mixed market than a planned economy. Billionaires and class disparities definitely still exist in China and it seems like american communists almost romanticize china while ignoring obvious flaws in its system, only because they (rightfully) hate america and america hates China. China also supplies all of the world’s exploitative corporations with the vast majority of their goods. While China is probably better than the capitalist economies of the west, I don’t understand why a lot of people seem to hold it in the same regard as the USSR.
Oh, they tried, billionaires or their flunkies tried to infiltrate the CPC and corrupt it in the 90s-2000s as capitalist accumulation reached a peak. Caused massive corruption issues and a lot of bad shit even as people were lifted from poverty.
One of the reasons I'm so positive about Xi despite him doing some things I disagree with is that he reversed this, forced new party members to have proper ideological vetting and theory education, and put the billionaires on notice.
Additionally, the CPC isn't a monolith. There are NEPmen and Nationalist minority factions, and there are hard-left Neo-Maoists and Cyberneticists like the Shanghai Branch.