China is better structured for decision making than the U.S. There is no question about that. With 5-year plans it has time to change or adjust its decisions, abandon them and start all over with new ones. The U.S. has no such time because every two years politicians must decide on the decisions made two years before. More fundamentally still, the federal government cannot tell the 50 states what they should do.
China has borrowed liberally from the U.S.—its capitalism and movies especially; and from the West in general it has borrowed its music literature, poetry, and other aspects of culture.
Just recently it was revealed by the New York Times that Chinese-born Elaine Chao and her husband Mitch McConnell, long-time leader of the Senate are using her family connections and interests in China to make millions of dollars for them both. This is corruption on the largest scale; but here it is just news, even amusing news. In China, both Elaine Chao and Mitch McConnell would likely be serving long prison sentences.
But the problem is how China would and should handle culture from the U.S.—the movies in particular. Take “Manchurian Candidate” for example. It is a powerful story of how North Korea captured American soldiers in the Korean War and brainwashed them. Would the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allow it to be shown in China? That is a question they face with a lot of other excellent Hollywood productions that challenge authority—“The China Syndrome” and “Fried Green Tomatoes” for example. Or would they follow India and only allow such movies as “Bollywood” produces, leading to mere propaganda films that the Mao era in China produced in its last years.
China—or rather, the Chinese system of government—is too smart for that. But it faces a serious problem.