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Communism.

Any society with majority chinese population (singapore, taiwan, hong kong) that has a free market is a modern developed country. China stuck behind for 50 years, and is now catching up.

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Communism was a roadblock, but China's relative decline (which really just means stagnation) started back during the Qing dynasty in the 19th century.

There are plenty of countries without any communist history that are in much worse shape than either China or Russia, so this can hardly be a sufficient explanation.

It is sufficient for the case of china.

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