It certainly is both. China's rationale is that their current capitalistic phase is a glorified long-term NEP (Lenin's capitalistic phase for the USSR). They cl

It certainly is both. China's rationale is that their current capitalistic phase is a glorified long-term NEP (Lenin's capitalistic phase for the USSR). They claim to be doing this to build up their economy to first world levels before progressing to the next phase of socialism in accordance with Marxian progression of economic structures. The problem communist countries have faced is not being able to live up to first world levels and both superpowers, the USSR and China, decided that reverting to capitalism is the answer. Of course, this isn't left 100% to the free market so the state has overall planned control of the economy and will intervene to preserve their interpretation of socialism ("socialism with Chinese characteristics").