Whether or not China is socialist or capitalist doesn't really matter: GP said "freer" economies have higher growth. Is China freer than Hong Kong or Singapore?

(BTW: China sure has a market economy, but OTOH it lacks multiple specifics of contemporary Western capitalist economies, e.g. it's not primarily driven by the financial markets, a significant portion of the workforce still works at state owned enterprises, much deeper planned macro economical development than in the West, ...)