Can China have capitalism without democracy?

Some controlled capitalism can exist, I think, in a communist country.

The problem is in non-democratic countries, innovation, a major component of capitalist structure.  The call goes out, once a major company seeks to entrench itself and stifle its competition that may come up with something better.  So, a particular company will be at the top of the competition only for a time; and then it is surpassed by a new technological shift that cannot be incorporated into the older style of a past leader.  And so, the major company's lights will have dimmed as the new rival gleams in competitive glory.

The successful company must come to assume itself possessor of the greatest possible solution to the old ways of doing things, but finds eventually that it proves to be also inefficient and costly, such that there is some other entrepreneur to improve the model and become the most successful and perhaps to remain monopolistic--for a time.

Remember, how some really successful company would buy out its competition that might prove to be even better than what the most successful has to offer in the marketplace?  Despite such attempts, some other "guy" genius would come up with a new methodology, perhaps something so new as to mean a technological revolution in its field, and subsequently, thus supplant what had cornered the market before it.

No, innovation is part of the capitalist scenario to advance technology from what is in current use, i.e., the innovation, followed by competition where the new and very different wins out over the traditional, and becomes the king of the mountain, until it, too, succumbs to some innovative, new process or product.  And, the capitalist beat goes on!

Poor Jack Ma's company.  The communist regime ultimately has tried to control his company and his mind!  He, too, must conform to the ultimate principle of letting his communist leaders take his profits and with it, run the country as they, the communists, desire it to be.  His money, which technically should be distributed in large measure among the stockholders of the enterprises he owns, becomes, by and large, the largesse in their bank accounts!  Essentially, Jack Ma didn't realize, he is working for his communist establishment that rules over every company in China.  His money--all of it, if these communists decide--is their money!

And were Jack Ma to think otherwise than that his money is actually the state's, he would be recruited into some Chinese thought-retraining camp, currently populated with Muslims (I understand).