> The huge discrepancies in wealth could be easily reversed
I don't think it could easily be reversed - you'd need a revolution. Not only because the higher ups have far too much skin in the game to want to reverse a system that generates huge wealth for themselves and their entire families, but they also know that the country needs capitalism and a market economy.
At the end of the cultural revolution, they also knew that after decades of proclaiming the evils of capitalism, it'd be a tough sell to the general population to just suddenly about face and say 'oops we were wrong, capitalism is good after all' and so we have 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' and a bunch of other things that are basically rebranded capitalism and that gives the general populace a warm fuzzy feeling without associating it with any of the cultural baggage terms like 'capitalism' have in Chinese society.
I don't think it could easily be reversed - you'd need a revolution. Not only because the higher ups have far too much skin in the game to want to reverse a system that generates huge wealth for themselves and their entire families, but they also know that the country needs capitalism and a market economy.
At the end of the cultural revolution, they also knew that after decades of proclaiming the evils of capitalism, it'd be a tough sell to the general population to just suddenly about face and say 'oops we were wrong, capitalism is good after all' and so we have 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' and a bunch of other things that are basically rebranded capitalism and that gives the general populace a warm fuzzy feeling without associating it with any of the cultural baggage terms like 'capitalism' have in Chinese society.