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It really is. Just awful. Consider if the ROC had managed to hold on to mainland China and not be forced to flee to Taiwan. What would China look like today? Things that happen in history matter. It's not just stats.
This is like trying to judge a baseball player based on his height and weight, ignoring that he tore his hamstring the night before. I don't see what value can be gleaned from this style of analysis.
China would likely look a lot better. But it's not a perfect comparison: Taiwan was already more urban and developed than the mainland at the end of WW2 (owing to Japanese investment and the lack of much bombing).
I'd expect China to have a dozen megacities comparable to Tokyo in development level and size, but still have many straggling rural regions not much better off than today.
Taiwan was more developed, but the gap was trivial relative to the gap that emerged:
http://danieljmitchell.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/china-v-taiwan.jpg
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Sure. But any model of wealth of nations that doesn't include "Did the Country have Communism" is bound to be severely limited.
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