Eh? Don't think socialism is to blame here. Sweden, as an example, is a very socialist country and also with a high degree of freedom to look at whatever you want (almost).
I think the confusion is that socialism is used to refer both the economic policies as well as political policies, which are actually orthogonal to each other..
In the case of China it is socialism in political policies but very capitalist in economic policies.
Sweden is socialism in the economic sense but politically it values freedom much more than China , you will see this if you notice the differences in tax rates in Sweden vs China.
Socialism is about collective ownership of industry. It has nothing to do with tax rates. The source of this misconception is likely decades of misinformation spouted by ahem certain American political groups that wanted to keep taxes low.
Communism can be considered a form of socialism. It's like socialism but with additional requirements. There are different interpretations of it (Leninism, Trotskyism, Maoism, etc.). What I would consider a "pure" definition of it would be socialism without the presence social classes, money, or the state (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism). This is necessarily much different from just socialism by itself.
My understanding is that although Sweden may have high tax rates, it on the other hand has a more-free market than the US. Hard to place Sweden on either side of the Capitalist/Socialist spectrum.
