Just a point of clarification: communists view historical and contemporary ‘communist’ states as socialist states on the way to becoming communist. The differece they see between the CPC and the USSR and social democratic states (like Nordic countries) is the approach and concern toward preventing the bourgeois erosion of social welfare and the continuing push toward eradicating capitalism as the dominant system of economic organization.

So while you’re absolutely right to point out that the CPC doesn’t fit the theoretical definition of a “communist society” (note that communism is supposed to be stateless), they are distinct from other social-democracy projects in their explicit goal in advancing to a full communism over time. The CPC even says so, if you were to believe them. They view themselves as in a transitional socialist stage on the way toward communism

This would likely also partly explain their attitude toward the use of state authority as a means to a communist end, but I wouldn’t pretend to know myself.