China saw Russia in 1990 and decided while there would be economic liberalization, there would be no political liberalization. They witnessed the Soviet Empire destroy itself. Putin is simply saying that view was the correct one
The Soviet Union could have instead focused on slow economic change, with more property freedoms, while endeavoring to keep the Party in control and the country together
Arguably the party and the economic system was simply too corrupt to reform. The bosses would not have stood for liberalization - market reforms, private farming, small business, privatization, etc.
They were too panicked keeping state enterprises going.
China with much less industry and many more traditional peasants actually had much less in overhead of useless state enterprises. And they hadn’t gone quite as far in demoralizing the peasant. Less than 20 years of communist madness (the bad stuff in the countryside went on in the 50’s) vs 70 years in the Soviet Union.