The most common metric available to compare countries with is the nominal Gross Domestic Product per head expressed in USA dollars, which for reasons of accuracy is sometimes presented at purchasing power parity (PPP) prices.
The mode of production in China is also capitalistic with the difference that in the Chinese case:
1 - there is operating side by side with the private sector a large array of profit seeking state-owned enterprises and 2 - that those in charge of both, the private and the state-owned enterprises, are subordinated to the interests of the state as being expressed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Planning can also be found in the western world, but in the form of indicative planning people interest in Marxism with for instance, Paul Samuelsen writing some very important stuff about
As far as I know some saltwater schools, yes saltwater schools of economics, had always people interested on Marx's ideas, including Paul Samuelson, a professor at MIT, who wrote a very important paper in the early seventies, I think, about the transformation problem.
