They were not meaningfully capitalist in the first place. An Communist don't just 'take over' a huge amount of things, happened to get to that point. To draw

They were not meaningfully capitalist in the first place. An Communist don't just 'take over' a huge amount of things, happened to get to that point. To draw a straight line between these two things is just reading history knowing the result and then declaring it deterministic. Any potentially history of China would have run into their own weakness eventually, no matter what Britain did, modern ideas would invade the country, no matter what Britain did Japan was rising already, no matter what Britain did, WW2 would have happened anyway. There is no alternative history where China remains idyllic pre-modern empire in the modern world. And the 100 year timeline doesn't really add up, after the Communist Party took over they were not exactly powerful and absolutely destroyed the country without outside influence for while, only when they eventually embraced modern capitalistic principles did they truly emerge from their weakness.