I have seen some well translated Chinese lectures on this, and basically it boils down to what you are saying, but also fit their situation well. Think about China in 1970s. A preindustrial society devastated by decades of war and invasion, struggling to industrialize. They needed industry, technology, and money. All they really had were natural resources and a well educated population (one of the aspects of the cultural revolution period that actually worked out quite well were literacy campaigns.). Their leaders had refused to be a flunky to what they rightfully saw as the decaying Soviet Union, they weren't content to just take orders from Moscow, which didn't leave them with many options. To accomplish rapid and massive industrialization, on a scale never seen before or since, they just had to bait the West, and lead their CEOs, industrialists, and bankers by the nose. They had the best trained workforce in the world willing to work for third world wages, and were a relatively safe and stable country. And of course, they copied the shit out of every piece of machinery and industrial equipment that was sent to them. They were playing catch up in a game where they were several hundreds of years behind in development. That is where the stereotype of China stealing inventions comes from, and in those early years it was pretty accurate.

However, with this growing industrial base established, China was able to do what the rest of the developing world nations are not powerful/self sustaining enough to do, which was to cut their reliance on technology and foreign capital flowing into the country. Now it is decades later, and they don't need our help developing industry. They don't need foreign technology, because in many areas they have now advanced to or beyond the Western standard. And soon with the Belt and Road initiative, they will no longer need America's capital or consumer base. Kwame Nkruma in Ghana was very particular in that Ghana was going to "modernize", not "Westernize". China is the most successful example of this in modern times, and historically on par with the explosive rise of industry in the Soviet Union.

However, China is not the Soviet Union of yore, and people need to realize this. They are not(yet) arming left wing rebel groups anywhere, to my knowledge. And I do not expect them to start doing this for another decade or two, if they do at all. Really the only thing I think we can expect with any certainty over the coming decades is the slow but steady rise of China as the leading world power, in trade, technology, and eventually influence on the world stage. What will happen, and how they will respond to a flailing and dying empire in the West remains to be seen.

Regardless of if it was the plan or simply the consequence (on either side of capital or communism), finance sought cheaper wages and shitter working conditions, and China used this to its advantage to develop its productive forces. I still can't reconcile whether this was a massive capitulation or some 4D hyper-chess shit, but the end result is the same. China has ended up as an economic and industrial powerhouse, while being the only nation on its scale to maintain any ability to subjugate finance. They still operate largely under the capitalist mode of production, but capital's influence is limited to a degree we can't even imagine in the west.