A not insubstantial part of China's economy involves private corporations that compete with each other. The image of China as a command economy hasn't been true since Deng's reforms of the early 1980's. At the higher levels, sure, a lot of executives will be beholden to the CCP, but there are few places China places a single bet on a single state venture. Even their fully government-owned ventures are often companies that compete with each other or have corporate subsidiaries that compete with each other, and so while you might be tempted to just deliver good news, you face the risk that your competitors will deliver better news backed with results.
This is not an attempt to suggest China's government is good, because it's not, but it's also not a carbon copy of the worst sides of the Soviet Union - for all of Deng's brutal authoritarianism, he did recognise and address a lot of the worst mistakes of Mao and the Soviets in terms of the economy.
It also still doesn't necessarily mean employees in a private company in China will be as open to reporting issues as they might have been elsewhere, but it does mean there are incentives in play that at least make many executives want to put effort into identifying and addressing issues.
This is not an attempt to suggest China's government is good, because it's not, but it's also not a carbon copy of the worst sides of the Soviet Union - for all of Deng's brutal authoritarianism, he did recognise and address a lot of the worst mistakes of Mao and the Soviets in terms of the economy.
It also still doesn't necessarily mean employees in a private company in China will be as open to reporting issues as they might have been elsewhere, but it does mean there are incentives in play that at least make many executives want to put effort into identifying and addressing issues.