China political system is communist from 1949. I believe they were a monarchy before. And occupied by Japaneses during WW2. Chinese economic system was changed from central planed to capitalism in 1978. That was 12 years before east European countries. Central planing cant compete with capitalism. Development and research gets to slow because of lack of competition.
Lack of competition?
Exactly the lack of competition. In central planed economy companies survive no matter if they do well or not. If tehy have loss they just get whatever they need to repay that loss. In capitalism companies that will work bad will get closed since they will bring loss to their owners. That is why in capitalism a lot is invested in progress of products or procedures or whatever. Competition pushes progress. Central planed economy proved to not work. Chinese were much smarter then East Europeans and cancelled it 12 years before them.