We shouldn’t call china a communist country. It’s something else and calling it communist doesn’t explain anything other than maybe the words they are using.
Importantly they claim themselves to be. But also the political system is still communist even if the economic system isn’t. During Leninism, the kulaks were incentivized. They needed a capitalist system; it wasn’t till Stalin willed it that confiscations happened and starvation happened by the millions. So communism historically has allowed capitalism, when expedient.
What’s more officially it’s “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era[1]" Read it, they really believe it. I know people are having a hard time believing it because it’s anathema to them.
