No they don’t. China got richer when they implemented free market reforms, proving the idea.
Unfortunately Xi is now focused on saber-rattling about national security and bullying neighbors. He has cracked down on free markets, and China’s economy is suffering due to his incompetence.
It's not a binary. If we say market freedom is a spectrum with the USSR at 0 and the US at 10 (reductive, but let's pretend) then China moved from 0 to 5 and became a global power within a couple decades. This is a strong argument in favour of a level-5 economy, not a level-10 economy..
