It’s doesn’t have to be “shining” capitalism to be free market reforms.

It’s pretty clear even “state capitalism” leads to wealth and the elimination of abject poverty.

That's actually not what it shows. It shows that the free market focused development model which was popular across the entire rest of the world did not, in aggregate, reduce abject poverty.

> It’s pretty clear even “state capitalism” leads to wealth and the elimination of abject poverty.

What even is the difference between such heavy state capitalism and socialism? Socialist economies existed with various level of market involvement and economic freedom, see Lenin's NEP - was the USSR initially a champion of free market reform?

You are mixing up democracy and capitalism. All democracies happens to be capitalist today since people quickly vote away communist leaders when they can, but that doesn't mean that democracy and capitalism are the same thing. China can be capitalist without democratic elections, I'd argue that is where they are today and where they have been since the "Chinese miracle" started.

China is capitalist, they just aren't democratic. They kept the authoritarian regime with sham elections from their communism days but changed everything else into capitalist systems, they are as capitalist as a typical western country today.

Authoritarian regime, control of society, control of economy are basically the definition of fascism. For obvious reasons the only clear difference with canon is the lack of anti-communism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

By the way, elections in China are only at very local levels. Most of what we do elections for in western countries are indirect elections there. The Congress is not directly elected by people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China

However you might want to check the 1929 elections in fascist Italy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Italian_general_election