[adamsb6]

Walk around any Chinese city and you’ll see hundreds of small businesses, as well as evidence of massive conglomerates.

That the state reserves the right to interfere as it sees fit doesn’t make it not capitalist. Unless the current chip war is evidence of America being not capitalist.

[Roark66]

By this measure even North Korea may be considered capitalist as there are private (illegal, but often unenforced) businesses. The essence of capitalism is not existence of private enterprises, mafia(or an oligarchy) is a private enterprise. Capitalism requires the rule of law that enforces private ownership and laws people can count on to resolve commercial disputes.

This is what differentiates capitalism (US, Europe etc) from authoritarianism (China) or mafia run states(Russia).