I partially agree with the basic point here, but China's not a great example as its economy is not, in fact, centrally planned. It is more of a hybrid of private enterprise/capitalism and strong state influence. Back when Chinese central planning was more aggressive and comprehensive, you had worse outcomes like the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward.
The obvious issue is that centrally planning an economy to achieve our desired outcomes is very difficult--perhaps beyond our capabilities. Of course, an easy way of addressing this is to do what China has done and effectively concede that you can't centrally plan everything, but you can find an equilibrium where the necessary parts are controlled and the rest left to market forces, with a system of regulations to address distortions created where the two meet.
Of course, you might also say that it's not exactly trivial to create a market-oriented system that achieves the outcomes we want. I think history demonstrates that societies have had greater success with market-oriented economies than with centrally planned ones. But you may be right that we shouldn't be so quick to completely rule out the possibility of a centrally planned economy based on a small number of examples, each of which was actively sabotaged by other major powers--much less should we rule out the viability of hybrid systems. (In fact, basically all modern economies are some sort of hybrid between planned and unplanned systems, including that of the U.S.)
The obvious issue is that centrally planning an economy to achieve our desired outcomes is very difficult--perhaps beyond our capabilities. Of course, an easy way of addressing this is to do what China has done and effectively concede that you can't centrally plan everything, but you can find an equilibrium where the necessary parts are controlled and the rest left to market forces, with a system of regulations to address distortions created where the two meet.
Of course, you might also say that it's not exactly trivial to create a market-oriented system that achieves the outcomes we want. I think history demonstrates that societies have had greater success with market-oriented economies than with centrally planned ones. But you may be right that we shouldn't be so quick to completely rule out the possibility of a centrally planned economy based on a small number of examples, each of which was actively sabotaged by other major powers--much less should we rule out the viability of hybrid systems. (In fact, basically all modern economies are some sort of hybrid between planned and unplanned systems, including that of the U.S.)