In spite of the Chinese party...
The Chinese gov may be massive and seem all encompassing but they don’t have an economic and financial administrative system yet comparable to the US (or Europe) which is involved in licensing and oversight of everything at multiple tiers of gov in the west, from who can be an interior designer (4yrs! of education is mandatory in some states) to who can cut hair. When China does have a system in place it can usually be bypassed by “financially partnering” with the local party officials. Which has allowed industry to flourish there, in spite of the sweeping sociopolitical controls and strong security posturing, which of course includes some of the downsides of lacking forward thinking administration with a strong industrial sector (environmental, long working hours, etc).
Just take the example of the whole process of opening a factory in the US, despite having the full support of the executive branch and some local governments, it has been an eye opening disaster for Foxconn. Any large factory opening in the US is a big deal and a laborious process that has to be greased by extensive tax breaks (to already wealthy companies) and other such nonsense (see Amazons whole HQ charade) to even happen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn's_Wisconsin_plant
So the improvements to the economic lives of the Chinese may have improved massively there are still lots of other areas it's straight-up authoritarian, or worse, its opaque what level of government is involved.Which in business is usually none until you’re making a lot of money, which can be skimmed. The good thing is with economic success comes improvements to education, healthcare quality, foreign travel, etc which improves the individual Chinese position in the world and hopefully can empower their home country to some brighter future.