I think I have answered a few times on this forum already on the issue of whether China is communist. The answer is yes, it still is. Too many people, especially younger ones, has a rather limited view on what exact communism is (or what capitalism is, for that matter) and somehow come up with the conclusion that China is no longer communist or China is capitalist. I will attempt to answer this again.
First of all, the bottom line. Political structures of nations are ever evolving and many countries will continuously adopt principles that yields benefit, regardless of which school of thoughts the principles originated. Hence communism/capitalism today wouldn't be the same as communism/capitalism in the 1950s and they certainly wouldn't be the same as their 19th century counterpart.
The core of communism lay within in two things, common (state) ownership of material for production or absence of social class. The former is easy to understand. State ownership of material of production is a characteristic seen in all socialism branches and pretty much all countries in the world has these to some degree.
The second part is a bit more tricky and frankly each country has its own interpretation. While Karl Marx originally envision an economy is completely free of money, class and social status, in practice, no one actually follows this vision strictly. The reason is that Marx's original vision depends on the government to be able to coordinate all economic activities within a nation down to small details and it just couldn't be done realistically, especially for large nations like USSR or China. Now, this isn't to say the idea doesn't have its merits. From Chinese perspective, there is very tangible benefit in reduction of difference in class and social status. The reason is that Chinese culture has historically trust meritocracy more than any other form of government. Reduction of class/social status difference just means you gets a bigger pool of candidates available for selection.
These are really the core principles that defines communism. There are additional principles Chinese like to follow, the most famous one is Mao's "any political theory must be considered with respect to actual situation in China", but broadly speaking, China today still follows the same core principle and ideas.
The biggest problem with people like the OP is that they somehow got the idea that political structure is this rigid and unchanging system and any deviation from it is criticized as betraying principle or lie. The reality is far different. In order for a country to flourish and prosper, it must continuously adapt itself to the changing environment, both external and internal.