Socialism with Chinese Characteristics had not been tried at that point :)

To be fair, Deng Xiaoping's reforms were based on the older New Economic Policy or NEP from the 1920s USSR, so it had been tried at that point. It was scrapped in the USSR for other reasons, not because it failed.

The word you're looking for is dictatorship, and it is not new.

Exactly, maybe we've got it all wrong :)

Ironically you can map China's progress over the last 30 years directly with their adoption of capitalistic policies.

The more capitalistic they become, the more growth they have seen.

Quoting a guy who is (in)directly responsible for murder of about 4 million people. Nice