You can’t have it both ways though. The policies enacted in Northern Europe would definitely be agreed on as communist/socialist by the majority of mainstream American politicians, Democrats included.

For some people, even the government interventions by those specific rich market-capitalist European countries are "too socialist" and get the exact same "didn't you realise Stalin killed millions?" kinds of responses.

PRC is way more capitalist than Norway or some other European countries. Approximately, one is capitalist dictatorship and the other socialist democracy.

Yes PRC government was originally propped by USSR but that's it. If you look at labor protection laws, social security, etc it's nowhere near.