Not just that, they can mandate large changes.
If you try to do that in a western country, you'll have fossil fuel lobbyists, car manufacturers and a whole range of other vested interests putting pressure on the country's government not to make that change.
Democracies might be slow and misguided but in the long term, they are the best shot to correct previous mistakes.
But who knows. Chinese leadership was very smart in the past, maybe thell find a new way.
So if they can't afford to switch from ICE to EV mandate, they still have options to get around. Though I think if a person had enough money to buy an ICE car, they should have enough to switch to an EV in China.