I'm not saying it had to look exactly like China, but would you agree there is a path forward towards market reform?
Yes, and this path was dissolution of the SU and the system of satellite states (many of which had been heavily subsidized by the SU), getting rid of the Party rule and other steps that resulted in creation of today's Russia.
Actually let's propose a few alternatives:
Yeltsin after signing Belavezha, announced OTL that the USSR would be succeeded by the CIS, at the time a lot of people thought the CIS would look like a New Union Treaty style USSR, with a common armed forces and other institution retained for all member states. This fell apart largely because Yeltsin didn't actually care about it, If Yeltsin went for it do you think reform was possible under the CIS.
Yeltsin otl also considered grabbing the Presidency of the USSR after the August coup, if he went for it do you think the USSR could have being reformed and distangled from the Communist party.
The SU was a rotting corps and could not be easily sustained economically or politically.
The Baltic republics and at least Georgia wanted out. AFAIK, Ukraine also wanted independence (nationalism + expectation that on their own they'll better off economically). The trick with the common armed forces would not work either: quite obviously, the bulk of these forces would be Russian and so would be supreme command. Economic cooperation of the independent states is a totally different thing.
OTOH, with the existing Russian perspective that within the SU Russian Federation had been heavily subsidizing the republics, an idea of keeping the whole monstrosity intact did not get enough traction in the situation when economic conditions were visibly deteriorating: why feed others when you have shortages of everything? Just out of the prestige considerations?
As for Yeltsin, he was a great man of the spectacular actions but not a long-term leader of the country in trouble.