When Thomas says 'there's nothing progressive about China', I would agree with him if he means it in the same way that you would say 'there's nothing progressive about America' or 'there's nothing progressive about Britain'. I take that to mean the capitalist ('neo-liberal', if you prefer) model is not solution to the problems of the future.
But looked at another way, Britain, America and China are all progressive: I mean in the obvious sense that their citizens' material conditions are not getting worse on the whole, but somewhat better (on the long trend, I mean, abstracting from the current recession and its terrible consequences).
Consider this. Between 1990 and 2007, China's under 5 mortality dropped from 45 to 22 per thousand; its infant mortality from 36 to 19, and its life expectancy from grew from 68 to 73. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=china+life+expectancy http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/china_statistics.html Incomes and nutrition are much improved (see this, a little out of date http://www.fao.org/docrep/U5900t/u5900t0a.htm) and most recently the China Daily recorded the shocking news that 'Urban Chinese saw their disposable income expand 3.4 percent in the first quarter, the lowest increase for the same period since 1997' http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/25/content_6645155.htm.
China's development might not fulfil socialist or environmentalist ambitions, but it would be daft ignore the improvement in the lives of many of its citizens.