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.
Since Deng, China has attempted a different kind of socialist experiment from those of Europe or small states. The idea was/is to run a capitalist market subservient to the party to "build productive forces", which includes further industrialization and embedding within global trade. There is actual theory around this you can read to see how this was both forwarded and rationalized. We can also debate whether this was a necessary change or the result of a slightly more liberal tendency taking power. But what really matters is that China's socialist experiment is working and continues to work, unlike European socialism that either (1) never developed as expected in the first place or (2) crumbled under internal contradictions and external threats.
China has produced stable growth that actually benefits its population via party oversight, integration into industry, and appropriation. You can see this in their infrastructure improvements, of course, but it also appears in their growing wages, improved living conditions, safer and better nutrition, better healthcare, better sanitation.
There is still exploitation in China, just as one would expect from socialism that's "taking it slow" and as Marx predicted. You can see that in accumulation like their billionaires (who they regularly execute and otherwise rein in, and increasingly so). This is, of course, horrible, but it's also strategic and not just a rationalization by Chinese liberals. China's geopolitical security is premised on a transition from world manufacturer with undercutting prices (produced through currency devaluation and exploitation) to a fully-developed country with a balanced economy of manufacturing, agriculture, and services - an economy based more and more on the domestic market, not just exports. This strategy not only creates a means by which to slowly improve material conditions, but saddles the Western imperialist powers, particularly the US, with a dependency on Chinese manufacturing. Any such country would suffer an immediate and long-lasting depression of they cut out Chinese imports. This has protected China during its transition and now it is strong. Note that Japan was not protected in this way and left itself in a weak position re: the US, so despite being an "ally" the US bombed its economy in the 90s through financial shenanigans.
Xi Jinping's allies are less lib than recent predecessors and are in power in the CPC. They are expanding the impact of communist party-driven redirection of resources from their capitalist-friendly zones to overall improvement of the people's conditions. China is proletarianizing in its own way, arguably a more sustainable way than, say, the USSR's understandably panicked industrialization, and actually is retaining and expanding a socialist view among those proles. It is cracking down on corruption and billionaires that don't divert their resources and effectively become non-billionaires. It's expanding health services, eliminating forms of poverty, guaranteeing housing and training and jobs to the most vulnerable. These are not natural outcomes of capitalism, they are driven by centralized organization of the CPC against capitalist interests.
In short, China is a country run by a communist party that is transitioning through/to socialism depending on how your want to define it, they're heading in the right direction, and they have problems and challenges like you'd expect - while also picking them off one by one.
And as a result of their success and largess, they are the primary bullwark against imperialism on the planet and likely our only hope against an out-of-control, uncontrolled spiral into climate change.
This is a great explanation. Appreciate it!