> What makes these plans go so successfully, when the soviets have historically not been able to make such plans successful (despite being richer and more powerful at the time)?
Soviets had more hardcore ideologues at helm most of the times until SU dissolution. They hardly allowed their ideology to be diluted without challenge, which made plans infeasible without real time feedback. China's Mao era was somewhat similar to that. After Mao, during fight between Gang of Four and Deng Xiaoping, realistic faction came on top with famous Deng saying "it doesn't matter if a cat is black or yellow, as long as it catches mice". Also China does experimentation at province and city level, with people succeeding promoting to national level, containing pitfalls of bad policy.
highly meritocratic system all the way from bottom to top. incredible indeed. in china you start as a low level official managing a village, if you succeed - you're promoted to town etc.
they keep detailed records of your performance in school from kindergarten and a comprehensive dossier is compiled to evaluated by party officials.
that means you will never have a nincompoop in charge at any level.
maybe chinese nationals / or ccp members can correct or add some things.
> they keep detailed records of your performance in school from kindergarten and a comprehensive dossier
this also means you want your record pristine. And it is also why officials cover up problems rather than report it up.
But their current success to out-maneuver the US in terms of trade, as well as capacity, is testament to perhaps the success of such a system. I do recall there was a massive purge on corruption over the past decade(s), which is probably helped a lot. This did not happen in soviet russia.
That massive corruption purge is mainly Xi purging rival factions like Shangai and Jiang. Sure, it also targeted corrupt officials, but main target is rival factions in consolidating Xi grip on power. There isn't lot of taboo about corruption if you align with the correct faction.
And also stay aligned with the correct faction. This also provides golden handcuffs: should one's alignment change, past misdeeds will instantly be remembered.
Rooting out corruption in russia is simply not possible when biggest thief is at the top of the pyramid (absolute minimum stolen from russian nation is on the order of 100 billions $$ stashed all over the world, but its hard to count when its spread across many 'representatives').
He also actively promotes corruption of his underlings, but the important point is - within hard limits of their position. Get greedy and overstep that and either modern gulag or window for you. Good luck saying to the rest of population 'don't steal!'.
Xi is not flaunting his billion dollar mansions with golden toilets or megayachts while his kids grow up in Switzerland, is he.
Meanwhile the USA now has an openly corrupt president (openly favors his pal Elon Musk's companies in his daily speeches, lets Musk shut down the same agencies that regulate Musk's companies, etc) who is shielded by his party from impeachment.
China is starting to look quite well run by comparison.
You can express that the emperor is naked in europe, without the emperor sending you to prison, thus guarantee a constant churn and renewal, that leaves behind the cherished product of science - something more truthish.
Competition allows for the ‘creative destruction’ of inefficient industries. See Tesla leapfrogging GM and the other companies. Apple and Microsoft jumping over IBM.
Stuff like that can’t happen if you have protected national giants.
Soviets had more hardcore ideologues at helm most of the times until SU dissolution. They hardly allowed their ideology to be diluted without challenge, which made plans infeasible without real time feedback. China's Mao era was somewhat similar to that. After Mao, during fight between Gang of Four and Deng Xiaoping, realistic faction came on top with famous Deng saying "it doesn't matter if a cat is black or yellow, as long as it catches mice". Also China does experimentation at province and city level, with people succeeding promoting to national level, containing pitfalls of bad policy.