China still have capital control and state-led economy, even if they're smart about it. The state create a market, remove barriers to entry in exchange for oversight , then pick and choose who consolidate and who doesn't once the market leaders emerge. If that's free market to you, everything post-mercantilism is, and the term loose some of it's power.
China did not go full free market. But it went far enough to create a huge prosperity boom.
Note that there's a continuum between communism and free market. It is not all or nothing. Experience, however, shows the more free market it is, the more prosperous it is.