[vkou]

You can't blame colonialism for China's pre-colonial-period problems, but you sure as hell have to give it the lion's share of credit for it's colonial problems.

Colonialism in China ended in 1945, a generation after the Qing dynasty. That time period was not a great time to live there, between the Japanese occupation, the civil war, and the country being split amongst a gaggle of warlords.

Whether or not the country would have developed without all of that is an open question. But if we were to ask whether not all those things were preventing development, the answer is 'Obviously, yes.'