Genuine question so please don’t hate on me. It seems to me that china now is more of a mixed market than a planned economy. Billionaires and class disparities definitely still exist in China and it seems like american communists almost romanticize china while ignoring obvious flaws in its system, only because they (rightfully) hate america and america hates China. China also supplies all of the world’s exploitative corporations with the vast majority of their goods. While China is probably better than the capitalist economies of the west, I don’t understand why a lot of people seem to hold it in the same regard as the USSR.
It was because they used third-rate security on their China systems. The same security they used on systems for the Middle East, etc. Turns out, China actually has competent hackers who got in and exposed the CIA's entire operation in China! Whoopsy-doodle! The whole network was rolled up and the spies were shot in front of their horrified co-workers. Now not only is the CIA blind in China, everyone knows what happens when you sign up with the CIA. They don't give a shit about you and will expose you through sloppiness or carelessness. The same thing happened several times with the USSR.
The CIA / US has forgotten the only thing that gave them any success in the Cold War - assume the other side has at least as many resources and tech as you have.
The US can’t handle opposition spying with countries that can have their own end-to-end spycraft tech. The whole strategy of backdoors in tech only works if the manufacturer works for you.