While they do have a competitive market, the government very much does pick and choose winners and loosers here like Huawei, resulting in consolidation into a few large conglomerates like every other country. Their (software) tech scene certainly dosen't like more particularly "capitalist" than Big Tech, nor is the Fed pumping subsidies to Tesla like BYD, if anything they're sidelining Elon Musk.
Right up until the moment that the CCP decides to purge your entire sector, sure. I don't know if it counts as "free" if the government stands ready to nuke the sandbox they so generously let you play in.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/beijings-regulatory-crack...
They proactively forced interconnectivity and limited the ability for companies to make "walled-garden peudo-monopolies", as we have in the US with Apple and Google.
If the same happens here (through act of congress, or legal outcomes), you can expect their market caps to decline as well. A decline in market cap doesn't speak at all to whether it's beneficial to the industry or consumers
WeChat is the inspiration for the idea of the "everything app" that so many US companies want to create but have always failed to. Has it somehow been newly limited in its ability to control an absurd percentage of all Chinese internet-connected activity?
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Beijing-asks-Ten...
"Beijing asks Tencent to lower WeChat's mobile payment market share"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zennonkapron/2022/11/09/chinas-...
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/china-may-impos...
"China is planning to introduce a new mobile payment regulation aimed at reducing the market share of Tencent Holdings' WeChat app, similar to efforts made by the National Payments Corporation of India to curb Google Pay and Phone's growing dominance in the market"
China's methods are more authoritarian than are viable in the west. But the general premise of a competitive market being better for society than dominance by a small number of firms is supported well by history
Those are 2 different things.
Monopoly doesn't mean "more powerful than the government". I'm not sure what that means, since the CCP disappears or coerces anyone who might threaten the supremacy of the CCP (or Pooh Bear) in any way.
Capitalism results in a single winner, for many industries. CCP prefers kingmaking in various industries, because it's easier for the government to control a few players than a multitude. This isn't what "fair market" means, in context. It's modern communism. State owned companies that are directed by government, rather than direct investment or day to day management. China learned from Russia's failures, I would say. I would also concede it's less regulated, under a political lens.