It’s agonizingly slow because of that one time they tried to progress agonizingly fast on one great leap.

Changing culture through generational education (their textbooks are way ahead of their laws) is slow but it sticks. They learned that the hard way. The snap-back happens in the West as well but there’s no learning happening.

And importantly for China it doesn’t leave large demographics thinking that the government is trying to control them instead of serve them. The US would love an opening like that to drive wedges into Chinese society.