an actual self-serving but smart understanding of capitalism

Welcome to marxism-leninism. Socialist state building is about achieving progress for the people. That can mean building up production forces and engaging in capitalism, as long as the capitalist class is subject to the peoples wishes.

In what way? There’s nothing to cope about

First and foremost, there’s no such thing as a “communist country”. Communism is a very late stage of socialist development when all class contradictions have been abolished. We don’t know what that might look like, but the consensus is that we can’t really talk about a country being communist but rather an overall state of the world.

Secondly, China has a fairly good grip over its billionaire class. They don’t have the class power their class has in the US, Europe, or the rest of the western capitalist world. The capitalist class in China is subject to the wishes of the working class represented by the party with its over 100 million members.