If China really is a socialist country or one pushing towards communism, why do you think they are waiting to push more directly in that direction? What is to be strategically gained from capitalizing your economy, essentially going backwards for 50 years instead of continuing to push for communism?
“Is China socialist?” is a simple question that has a multifaceted answer.
Is the Chinese government ideologically socialist? Yeah, I’d say on average.
Is the Chinese economy socialist? No, it pretty obviously has a lot of capitalism, despite strong regulations.
Is China ever going to become socialist? Dunno. Hopefully, but I can’t know the future.
Why hasn’t China become socialist yet? Same reason every other ideologically socialist country hasn’t; too many external forces pressing against it. When the USSR was a thing, it made great strides in increasing their material conditions, but the Cold War was like a vice strangling them. Their trade was limited, they spent way too much on their military to compete with the US, and other important sectors suffered because of it. This, among many other things, is why the USSR failed.
Assuming China is actually committed towards socialism, if they pressed the socialism button today and purged all their capitalism, it would absolutely start the second Cold War. Right now a lot of countries rely on China for trade, but this isn’t irreversible. In a real Cold War situation, many wealthy western nations would still side with the US, even though China has more industry. After all, nothing revs up US industry like war.
China wants to get to a point where they are so integrated into global trade that not only would they win a Cold War, they would make it impossible for a new one to start. If they can get to that point, they can go beyond what the USSR did.