Communism didn't work for China either, initially. Mao Zedong's implementation produced a famine that killed over 70,000,000 people. It wasn't until Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms that the country begin to flourish. The reforms involved, among other things, decollectivization of agriculture, support for entrepreneurship and private industry, support for foreign investments, and privatization and deregulation of most of the state-owned industries. That's when the economy began growing so rapidly. So to call it "communism," especially anything remotely resembling Soviet communism, is a stretch. It's a more of a hybrid economic system. There are also major problems in China precisely because it doesn't have a social safety net (e.g., have 80-year-olds who can't retire, or one serious illness wiping out the life savings of a whole family unit). I think Xi Jinping wakes up every day and thinks, "How do we keep this going one more day?" It's definitely not all roses, neither here nor there.