Great question. My guess is some combination of: - capitalist road being taken within the CCP/without political parties that would have invited in the IMF - China having watched Japan from next-door and learned the proper lesson (see Baran, _Political Economy of Growth_): success requires strong early state incubation - the lack of the Yeltsinists' Europeanist illusion that long noses, white skins, round eyes, and close histories would get them a ticket into Bohemian Grove - the more rural nature of China, which reduces unrest over industrial restructuring - China's comparative lack of industrial and retail bosses wanting to convert the factories and stores they managed immediately into personal property - fewer illusions about the dispensability of a strong state in a land of 1 billion people