I'm not one to answer your question well. I am interested in seeing more people's viewpoints and knowledge here as I did have a previous discussion on Lemmygrad where I learned that the Cultural Revolution was hijacked by ultras and Lin Biao attempted to assassinate Mao.
I disagree calling China not socialist. Forgive me if this is an oversimplification of China's economy and government, but I view China as analagous to a computer with a Linux host with a Windows virtual machine, but instead they are a socialist country with a capitalism virtual machine, which they have done well hardening against and preventing a "capitalism vm escape". Now in the current era of Xi Jinping, China has been shrinking the capitalist vm and gradually replacing obsolete components with state controlled industry, such as their recent vow to centralize their tech industry (just as Linux tools develop to a stage where users are enabled to replace the programs they rely on Windows for with Linux supported alternatives).
I dislike that millions of disadvantaged workers lost some of their rights and had to work in the non-unionized private firms to help China increase its production. I don't know if China would have been able to reach the stage it has achieved today if they continued the socialist only road, but I believe considering reality, I am afraid they may have sufferred the same fate as the Soviet Union if they didn't convince imperialist nations to invest into their economy. It's a brutal world, and unfortunate things happen that not even the strongest socialist nation can stop 100%. Thus, I believe China did their best and managed to be successful, which I am grateful for as a USian.