If you don't like the American system's corruption, the last place you should admire is China, because it's basically what would happen here if we took corporatism even further but had a dictator controlling everything at the top.
I think the control of a state by any large interest group requires corruption, and I don't think any version of capitalism can exist without massive private corruption.
Imho, China's authoritarian one-party system of politics is exactly what (state) capitalism was created for:
Confronting the Challenge of Chinese State Capitalism
"China now has more companies
on the Fortune Global 500 list than does the United States (124 versus 121), with nearly 75 percent of these being state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
"Three of the world’s five largest companies are Chinese (Sinopec Group, State Grid, and China National Petroleum).
"China’s largest SOEs hold dominant market positions in many of the most critical and strategic industries, from energy to shipping to rare earths.
"According to Freeman Chair calculations, the combined assets for China’s 96 largest SOEs total more than $63 trillion, an amount equivalent to nearly 80 percent of global GDP."
I don't have admiration for any edition of capitalism because of the degree of corruption required to sustain any economy built of exploitation and imperialism.
I disagree but only in terms of corporate structure. Capitalism does not require said corruption. Corporations seem to, however.
Capitalism does not require corporations. For most of its existence, capitalism did not have corporations. Corporations themselves are an invention of the state through corporate law. Before corporations, there were certain large companies (like the East India Company) which sometimes colluded with governments, but they still did not have the corporate veil that exists today.
If we eliminated most of corporate law, capitalism would become much freer throughout the world. Of course, that's not going to happen.
So, in practical terms, you could say capitalism is the problem, but in technical terms, it is instead a problem with corporatism or corporate law.