The reason why China is doing so well is not because of the communists. In fact, their "great leap forward" program failed so horribly, the leadership realized that if they didn't change course, the people would revolt and all the leaders would be dead. So instead they started to allow private property, and created over 200 economic free zones modeled after Hong Kong. The plan was a stunning success.

Once they had all that massive economic growth, they could fuck up and screw with the economy quite a bit, and get away with an unbelievable amount of bullshit. In a way, they are a lot like the US leadership, who keeps fucking things up all the time, while the free market economy keeps plowing forward.