There's a ton to complain about China, but they have the long term vision chiseled on a mountain top somewhere...
USSR had enormous growth in the early years (well, after adopting the NEP) all through the rural electrification period and were favorably contrasted with the 1930s depression in the west. It didn’t work out though in the long term.
You trade stability for flexibility. It takes time to steer a big ship, even if your current plan has clearly extremely negative effects (e.g. killing all the sparrows resulting in a locust population boom during the Great Leap Forward). A command economy is about as big as a ship can get.
But one thing to keep in mind.
China has almost 13 times more people than Japan had at its peak.
China is 30 times bigger than Japan.
If China reaches Japan's level of development, its GDP will be ~56tn. For comparison, the US GDP is ~21tn.