The Chinese system has evolved since Deng created his state enterprises and there are many markets in China now that have a significant degree of freedom. But not all, and they all started out as regulated hierarchical distribution systems due to 2 million people being slaughtered by Red Guards on top of 20 years of rigorous communism. Deng cracked the chicken/egg issue of development by showing that it is possible to construct the chicken from edicts and then make it pass it's eggs around.

(I like metaphor)