I refer to their transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized one. If you think that China is where it is today without the effects of globalization then we don't really have anything to speak about.

The industrial base formed by Mao remains completely intact. State-owned Enterprises have always had full or near-full control of all critical industries. Let's not forget the Soviets industrialized without any of those benefits. Moreover, while what happened under Deng Xiaoping sped up development, China was never capitalist nor state capitalist.

Jeff J. Brown, a China analyst, details this further in this excerpt from an interview about his book China Rising: Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations:

"The greatest misunderstanding about China is that when Deng Xiaoping came out with his reform, everybody thinks that China became a capitalist country. Only part of the economy was turned over to capitalist practices, the vast bulk of the Chinese economy is still very much Communist. Let me explain why, first off China has no private real estate, every square inch of this country is owned by the state, people are not buying land, they're buying long-term leases up to 70 years, this has a powerful impact on keeping people from amassing tremendous wealth. Secondly, the economy, all the big heavyweight industries are all state-owned. They only allow maximum 30% ownership by non-state owners, and they have very strict stock concentration laws that prevent anybody from amassing more than a tiny percentage. That's the bulk of the economy, the rest of it is the small business entrepreneurial sector that is almost all privately owned. What the Chinese do is they turn these consumer goods, these high volume, low margin industries over to the people and let them fight it out, helping keep prices and inflation down. With the government owning all the land and the huge industrial sectors, it is still very very Communist. The other thing that makes it Communist is they still have the Five-Year Plan, just like Lenin set out. The reason why China is kicking the butt off of Europe and North America is because the government has already planned to have X number of products. This is why the mixed model of a predominately government-owned economy mixed with a vibrant lower economy in the private hands is working wonders."