Centrally planned economies don't suffer too badly in Strategic Industries, especially not when trying to catch up to the free countries, as long as there's at least some level of capitalism involved. The goals are very clear and they can steal tech quite easily, so the lack of incentives to take risks and innovate don't matter. The USSR went from agricultural backwater to nuclear power with its own space station quite fast, largely by stealing tech using ideological true believers.
But of course things started to fall apart from there. As the true nature of the USSR became clear to westerners, ideologically motivated spies started to dry up and the KGB was forced to pay large bribes to get information. They focused on military info, and so their economy started to fall behind in other areas. By the end of the 1980s the gap in quality of life became so huge that Yeltsin famously put his head in his hands and cried after visiting an American supermarket.
China is somewhat centrally planned but more capitalist than the USSR was, and doesn't suffer so badly from the underproduction of consumer goods. Some people claim China is really just a capitalist dictatorship that cosplays as communist by this point, which isn't quite right; it's somewhere in the middle.
But the idea that they won't be able to catch up in advanced tech is just wrong. There are tons of patriotic Chinese people with access to high tech firms in the USA and these days you don't even need them, it's sufficient to just hack networks and steal documents in bulk. Sooner or later they will be the only country in the world that's technologically fully self sufficient. It will just have involved making enemies of everyone else.
There are two areas where they could really start to suffer after that:
1. Erratic decision making from the top that screw things up. Already a big problem for them.
2. If the west is able to properly tighten up corporate opsec and the flow of stealable ideas dries up.
Of course, China has lots of smart people who could come up with great ideas and firms if allowed, the prevalence of hard working Chinese in western companies shows that. But that involves taking risks in the expectation of reward. Look at what happened to Jack Ma. China doesn't reward success, it punishes it. The Great Firewall also makes everything way harder for them.
But of course things started to fall apart from there. As the true nature of the USSR became clear to westerners, ideologically motivated spies started to dry up and the KGB was forced to pay large bribes to get information. They focused on military info, and so their economy started to fall behind in other areas. By the end of the 1980s the gap in quality of life became so huge that Yeltsin famously put his head in his hands and cried after visiting an American supermarket.
China is somewhat centrally planned but more capitalist than the USSR was, and doesn't suffer so badly from the underproduction of consumer goods. Some people claim China is really just a capitalist dictatorship that cosplays as communist by this point, which isn't quite right; it's somewhere in the middle.
But the idea that they won't be able to catch up in advanced tech is just wrong. There are tons of patriotic Chinese people with access to high tech firms in the USA and these days you don't even need them, it's sufficient to just hack networks and steal documents in bulk. Sooner or later they will be the only country in the world that's technologically fully self sufficient. It will just have involved making enemies of everyone else.
There are two areas where they could really start to suffer after that:
1. Erratic decision making from the top that screw things up. Already a big problem for them.
2. If the west is able to properly tighten up corporate opsec and the flow of stealable ideas dries up.
Of course, China has lots of smart people who could come up with great ideas and firms if allowed, the prevalence of hard working Chinese in western companies shows that. But that involves taking risks in the expectation of reward. Look at what happened to Jack Ma. China doesn't reward success, it punishes it. The Great Firewall also makes everything way harder for them.