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I think things are more nuanced in China than most people give credit for. The difference between the market system in China versus the market system in the United States is that in China, Business is subordinate to the Party, while in America, the Parties are subordinate to Business.
Communist Party leaders don't need campaign donations from billionaires to win elections, and every business of substantial size has party officials stationed in their offices to check for compliance with State mandates. The same way Americans are taught the value of Liberal Democracy in schools by default, in China, children are given Marxist literature and treat Socialism as an obvious moral good. America is a cynical country, and because of this, we view all other countries with the same cynicism. China is not a cynical country. Chinese people actually believe in their government, and in Socialism. And Communist Party officials are people; most are middle-class (much less oligarchic than the millionaire-stuffed American Congress) and believe generally in Socialist ideals. Just like how in America bureaucrats need to believe that they are "doing the right thing" for the preservation of Liberal Democracy, in China, Chinese bureaucrats believe they are building Socialism. Ultimately, this belief is the only important thing; as long as the Chinese people do not become cynical, the Socialism is real. What Westerners on the internet think of it does not matter a bit.
You only need to look at how China deals with the super-rich. Despite only having a couple hundred of them, China has executed dozens of billionaires; further dozens have been murdered, committed suicide, or jailed. I can only find data from 2011 (72 dead, no data for prisoners), but they haven't stopped, and I would be willing to bet the number is well over 100 by today. If Billionaires were truly in charge in China, don't you think they would object to the government executing and imprisoning them?
Authoritarian state capitalism is different than liberal capitalism, I wasn't trying to say they're the same as the U.S, and you correctly outlined some differences that I agree with.
As for beliefs, I also recognize many Chinese people believe they have socialism, just like many Americans believe that we live in a free democratic first world country. The similarity here is that both these takes are just state propaganda that have been successfully fed to the masses.
China has successfully reverted anything remotely socialist about the country over the last 40 years. Like I've said previously, I recognize one day they might flip the switch, eliminate all the landlords & business owners, seize the means of production, and dissolve the State. I don't believe this will happen though, and they've made no indication of even moving vaguely in this direction.
If/when the day arrives that the workers own the means of production and are no longer wage slaves to a bourgeoise class, they will have successfully installed socialism. Before that day comes you can't just execute a few billionaires and claim you have socialism, if you're at all concerned with the true state of things.
Again, I think the situation is more complicated than you give it credit for.
I am not a believer in Deng Xiaoping. I believe he was basically a Chinese Gorbachev, and attempted to destroy Socialism in China through Liberal reforms. The difference between the USSR and China is that, in China, they missed the "Yeltsin coups the government" step. They tried, in the June 4th Incident, and failed. And now that most of the grifters are dead or dying, we're left with the principled Socialists who believe in Socialism with Chinese Characteristics; and it turns out that, so long as the Communist Party maintains its integrity (and, by and large, it has), the building of Productive Forces through a mixed-system economy is actually really great. It's what Gorbachev wanted for the USSR before Yeltsin's coup.
China is still in the early stages of their transition from a market system to a Socialist one, but they have made great strides in this regard. They've nationalized industries, they're building trade infrastructure with other countries to rival the West, they actually enforce anti-corruption laws, they've completely eradicated extreme poverty. They've eliminated privatized schooling, they're constantly modernizing rural life by moving villagers to apartment complexes and single-family suburban homes. Xi Jinping grew up in a cave sleeping on a stone bed - heated with a dung fire - with his entire extended family. Now these sorts of living arrangements are preserved to be toured by newer generations as "how your grandfather used to live". This is the success of Socialism in China.