I'm very sympathetic to this point - regulations are usually there for a reason, and it's important to know what it is - but there's always a grey area between genuine public need and regulatory capture by special interests, which the incredibly dysfunctional nature of US politics hides.

The big ones are probably zoning and protectionist car regulations.

(Note that having a one party state makes a lot of the problems of partisanship go away. However, the problems of "working towards the leader" and the tendency to hide unfavorable news leading to poor decisions are still there. The tradeoff that China has is that, so long as high levels of growth can be delivered, political unrest can be contained, or dealt with by blaming "corrupt local officials" who can then be "dealt with".)

Yes, in China the government comes, takes your land, pays you pennies, and builds a railroad on it.

Yes, in China there's less regulations when building nuclear plants, that makes it easier to do so there. Where would you rather live, close to a Chinese or an American one knowing the second had to nail 10 times more rules and inspections?