Also: >prosperity without freedom, development without democracy, safety without expansive civil liberties.
So did the USSR in many places.
This is contrary to the ideology of the cold war that the market economy of the West won because of western liberties - freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free elections. China's incredible transformation is happening without those things.
There's nothing incredible about a GDP per capita of $15k, less than half the GDP of Korea, Japan or Taiwan. Slightly less even than places like Romania and Turkey. The only thing impressive about it that China's population is so large that the absolute GDP can be high even when the GDP per person is low. But the purpose of a government/economic system is to improve the standard of living of its citizens, and by that metric China is far behind other East Asian nations.
the ai had older data but it proves the point: "While the average disposable income for urban residents in 2019 was approximately 39,244 CNY (roughly $5,800 USD), rural residents earned significantly less at 14,389 CNY (roughly $2,100 USD)"
What about things like the affordability of things (daily stuff, vehicles, etc.) and metrics like home ownership?
The reason China's total GDP is high is because the population is so high, over a billion people. That's something the Chinese government deserves zero credit for because without the one child policy the population would be even higher; the Chinese government actively tried to suppress population growth.
As another point of reference, Taiwan's GDP per capita is around $34k. I.e. if you look past the propaganda, in empirical terms the average Taiwanese person's material quality of life is twice as good as the average mainlander's.