There's a common misconception that China's economy development only really took off after Deng reforms. However, the reality is that there's been steady progress since the revolution.

well, the gdp before 1950 is really negligible and probably mostly based on estimates (bc of the few data points on this chart and bc china wasnt unified). qing economy was really bad and outdated, also the usa wasnt in a constant state of civil war and external invasions in their home territory 1870-1950. not to discredit chinas incredible economic growth, i think more states should copy this model, but a country with that many people would probably experience gdp growth under any system that industrialises and has peace and a working government. maybe not as fast, but still. compare india to china in the same timeframe and you will see how enormously faster chinas growth is, even though they both started from basically 0. and ppl still say socialism doesnt work haha

GDP per capita begins to grow consistently only after 1977