As far as I can tell, this kind of rhetoric stems from a lack of understanding of the economic similarities between the “Nordic Model” and Chinese-style communism.

One might argue that they are both “mixed economies,” but they are very different.

The Nordic countries are imperial core countries that benefit from neocolonialism. They are bourgeois democracies, meaning that the state enforces the dominance of the capitalist class over the working class. Because of this, something like a Meidner Plan, which proposes slowly eliminating the capitalist class, will never be allowed to happen in these states.

In China, the capitalist class is not in control of the state, though some limited capitalism is being allowed in the short term, with a plan to eventually eliminate it altogether. And China is not an imperialist state (despite NATOpedia’s false claims of “debt trap diplomacy”).

Gabriel Rockhill - How The Left Should Analyze the Rise of a Multipolar World, China, Russia & BRICS

Socialism can develop differently in different countries.

This is true, though they can’t develop in any old way they’d like. All of the Western European attempts at socialism in the 20th century failed. All anarchist attempts have failed. The only successful ones so far have rested on a Marxist–Leninist foundation.