I follow it, too. 
But not in the ways I do. 
Although even with authoritarian government, there are limits to what can be done, as evidenced by the still heavy pollution problems and rapidly growing energy consumption there. China still got 73% of its electricity from coal in 2015, though down from 81% in 2007.
China builds a coal plant every two weeks in order to power all those electric scooters. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What is really frightening is when someone talks about China’s CO2 per capita output and defends that number as way lower then most countries. The scary part is as they catch up the COL that number will go way up and when you multiply by 1.x billion you get really big numbers for CO2 output.
China may be leading in some specific areas of R&D, but they are among the worst offenders when it comes to pollution. China is in the worst five countries in the world in terms of air quality.
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-polluted-cities-in-the-world-ranked/2/
Yes, they have practices that need a major overhaul but, yes, they are leading in many areas of innovation which will lead to future advances and JOBS.