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From The Governance of China vol 4 I would say the two sections that most make me think this way are:
Both of these sections deal with the special economic zones and free trade zones. Throughout vol 4 there are other points where more market oriented things are discussed but these two are where it is more of a focus. If I recall correctly from vols 1-3 there was a bit less discussion around these topics.
Additionally Xi's "Up and Out of Poverty" is very much about reform and opening up. It has a collection of his works from 1988-1990 so it makes sense that reform and opening up was a topic he mentioned frequently.
Reform and opening up is always one of those things I didn't like, but understood. So far it's worked to massively increase China's control over global production and is in line with how Lenin saw the NEP (If they want to sell us the rope, let them). So far the downsides include over exploitation of workers in any of these zones and also exploitation of specifically migrant workers near these zones to generate profit for a new capitalist class.
If this new capitalist class can be controlled and kept from creating a new power structure, it's a useful tool for dealing with imperialists, but it needs to always be subject to complete liquidation. Which is how China seems to approach this class.
The leveraging of foreign capital to develop domestic production for domestic consumption is also a plus. A trade surplus allows China to have some financial levers of power and keeping foreign capitalists from private ownership of the land their factories sit on also creates a positive power dynamic.
The development of China's domestic consumption has also made it irresistible to western capitalists who will continually prostrate themselves at the CPC's feet for access to it no matter what they say in the west.
Yea I can definitely understand how towards the end of the GPCR that reform and opening up would look tempting particularly with the state of the USSR and the lack of revolutions in the imperial core.
I think the comparison to the NEP is fair, however the NEP was only around for 7 years and reform and opening has been going on for close to 50 years. So this looks less temporary to solve an immediate issue and more like a permanent fixture. The increase in opening that they are pushing for also makes me think it is less likely to be reversed any time soon.
I think the controlling the new captialist class is a big if. Not in the sense of individuals but more on the promotion of capitalist ideology and their influence on culture which will lead to further erosion of communism. When I lived in China it did seem a lot more consumerist and capitalist than a lot of places I have lived in the West.
The CPC has done a good job of getting western capitalists to want access. They do have many skilled politicians and leaders. I would happily take Xi over many world leaders today, but I see the CPC as having stepped off the correct path. I don't think they are irredeemable in any way, I just don't see them pushing towards communism in the same ways they have in the past.
Totally understand, there is a tendency with the Western left to idolize the CPC, which kinda makes sense. There isn't really an alternative except maybe Cuba, Vietnam, and DPRK. Those nations are also not in a position to really influence the positions of global capital.
There's also the fact that Marxists who don't live in China don't have to interface or deal with the domestic issues that come up there. All they have to interact with is the foreign policy of the CPC, which is significantly better than any other country (at least any country with a similar GDP, Cuba and even DPRK both do fantastic work with aid programs given their size).
I'll always be critically supportive of Chinese governance with the knowledge that many of their decisions arise from the conditions of China within the global market system and the reliance of China on access to that system. We can hypothesize about how things would be different if the Sino-Soviet split didn't happen and the entire East was unified under one socialist market that drarfed that of the west, but that's not the reality.
The reality is that China until recently had a relatively small domestic market for light industrial goods and developed their economy through export of labor and import of MOP. The current factor that we need to pay attention to is how the CPC transitions that model as China's internal markets develop to the point where they don't need to rely on export and can entirely function as a closed loop.
At that point, the need for "reform and opening up" will be basically gone except maybe for dealing with third world nations still shackled to the Dollar, but as the B&R continues to be built, those nations will be able to more easily divest from the dollar market and subsist on Chinese trade routes that honor their local currencies.
So yes, I agree that there's issues and that if things stagnate where they are then China and the CPC run the risk of backsliding into revisionism and a new form of capitalism, but as of now the pieces are in play that could absolutely be used to cast off that system. All we need to watch out for is how these programs and policies actually play out.