I'm not sure if Gowans is really worth the time debating. He's developed some truly contrarian nuclear takes recently like that "US capitalism is as state-led as Russia's and China's", which either reveals profound economic ignorance on his part or he's simply seeking attention with trolling and is no longer willing to engage in good faith.
Capitalist states also don't just randomly decide to rapidly expand cooperatives throughout their country like China has. The CPC under Xi substantially increased the amount of supply and marketing cooperatives to cover over 95% of villages and townships as of 2018 (was only 56% in 2012) and broadened their scope of services to other industries.
Correct. Also, hardly anyone realizes today just how controversial the NEP was during that time among the left both within the Soviet Union and outside it with many socialists denouncing the party as having betrayed socialism. The late Marxist scholar Domenico Losurdo wrote an excellent article on this regarding the history of the Soviet NEP and how the NEP experience parallels China's market reforms:
Overall,
the situation in Soviet Russia improved noticeably: on the international level it did not worsen; rather, Russia’s delay in development started to decrease compared to the successful capitalist countries. Domestically, the living conditions of the masses improved significantly. Precisely because social wealth increased, there were more than just “the poor and the very poor,” as in the war communism celebrated by Pierre Pascal; desperate hunger and starvation disappeared, but social inequalities increased. These inequalities in Soviet Russia provoked a widespread and intense feeling of betrayal of the original ideals. Pierre Pascal was not the only one wanting to abandon the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; there were literally tens of thousands of Bolshevik workers who tore up their party cards in disgust at the NEP, which they re-named the “New Extortion from the Proletariat.” In the 1940s, a rank-and-file militant very effectively described the spiritual atmosphere prevailing in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution—the atmosphere arose from the horror of war caused by imperialist competition in plundering the colonies in order to conquer markets and acquire raw materials, as well as by capitalists searching for profit and super-profit:
We young Communists had all grown up in the belief that money was done away with once and for all. [. . .] If money was reappearing, wouldn’t rich people reappear too? Weren’t we on the slippery slope that led back to capitalism? (Figes 1996, 771)
Therefore, one can understand the scandal and a persistent feeling of repugnance for the market and the commodity economy at the introduction of the NEP; it was above all the growing danger of war that caused the abandonment of the NEP and the removal of every trace of the private economy.
After distinguishing itself for decades for its peculiar history and its commitment to stimulating production through competition not only between individuals but also between different forms of ownership, the China that arose from the Cultural Revolution resembled the Soviet Union to an extraordinary degree in its last years of existence: the socialist principle of compensation based on the amount and quality of work delivered was substantially liquidated, and disaffection, disengagement,
absenteeism and anarchy reigned in the workplace. Before being ousted from power, the “Gang of Four” attempted to justify the economic stagnation, debating the populist reason for a socialism that is poor but beautiful, the populist “socialism” that in the early years of Soviet Russia was dear to Pierre Pascal, the fervent Catholic whom we already know.
Then populism became the target of Deng Xiaoping’s criticism. He called on the Marxists to realise “that poverty is not socialism, that socialism means eliminating poverty.” He wanted one thing to be absolutely clear: “Unless you are developing the productive forces and raising people’s living standards, you cannot say you are building socialism.”
Deng Xiaoping’s reforms reintroduced in China the model that we already know, although giving it new coherence and radicalism. The fact remains that the coexistence of different forms of ownership was counterbalanced by strict state control directed by the Communist Party of China.
Indonesia, Argentina, and Malaysia lacked the degree of public control over the commanding heights of the economy that China or even the NEP-era Soviet Union had with their effective state monopolies over a number of major industries. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission found that the contribution of state-owned enterprises, urban collectives, publicly-owned township and village enterprises, and other CPC controlled entities (both direct and indirect) accounted for almost 50% of GDP (state-owned enterprises/directly controlled enterprises accounted for about 40%). No capitalist country has the level of public control of banking that China has, which is dominated by state-owned banks with deposit and lending policies being directed by the government. A study on public sector investment and growth showed that China had a stock of public sector assets worth about 150% of annual GDP. Every major capitalist economy other than Japan had less than 50% of GDP in public assets. Also, there are nearly three times as much stock of public productive assets to private capitalist sector assets in China. In the US and the UK, public assets are less than 50% of private assets. In India and Japan, the ratio of public to private assets is no more than 75%.
State-owned enterprises in the Soviet Union under the NEP also operated on a profit basis and were given more autonomy in management compared to the old system of War Communism (the NEP was a significant influence in guiding the Chinese market reforms for Deng). Economic reforms in the Soviet Union and East Germany during the 1960s also introduced and emphasized profitability as a key indicator of enterprise success and efficiency as well as providing more autonomy for enterprise managers.
A recognized major role and benefit of the state-owned enterprises in China is that they act as a buffer against internal shocks and external threats while stabilizing economic growth during downturns through massive investment and promoting technological progress. With a robust state-owned sector, China was able to fare significantly better than much of the major capitalist economies during the Great Recession and the pandemic. The Chinese economy was also able to bounce back well from the stock market turbulence from 2015 much to the chagrin of the many western analysts who were predicting a Chinese economic catastrophe then.
Public ownership being “primary” is in reference to the commanding heights of the economy and major strategic industries still being predominantly under public ownership. Most of the top 500 companies in China are also still publicly owned. Less strategic industries tend to be relegated to the private sector. It’s similar to the economic structure of the soviet NEP that incorporated state capitalism with a large private sector while seeking foreign investment for its development, albeit China’s version of the NEP (“socialist market economy”) is certainly more long-term, as they don’t face the same external pressures for a “Great Break”. The party also exercises public control over the private sector and can influence management decisions through communist party cells that have been installed in about half of the country's private enterprises so far. Chinese media do praise the state sector and have emphasized the importance of state-owned enterprises in achieving poverty alleviation and boosting the economy. China will also brag about its private sector to help with attracting foreign investment for the country.
In late 2020, a plan to make state-owned enterprises “stronger, better and bigger” was approved by the Central Commission for Comprehensive Reforms and over 40 high-tech companies have also been recently nationalized. Xi has recently declared that the Communist Party’s state-owned enterprises “form the economic and political foundation of China’s socialist system and are a key pillar for the Party’s rule” also adding that the state sector’s role “cannot be negated nor weakened”. He has also praised state firms and announced that they have proved their worth in “both pandemic control and industrial production”. The CPC under Xi has also been substantially increasing the amount of supply and marketing cooperatives to cover over 95% of villages and townships as of 2018 (was only 56% in 2012) as well as broadening their scope of services to other industries.
I'm not sure if Gowans is really worth the time debating. He's developed some truly contrarian nuclear takes recently like that "US capitalism is as state-led as Russia's and China's", which either reveals profound economic ignorance on his part or he's simply seeking attention with trolling and is no longer willing to engage in good faith.