No Chance for Systematic Implementation
The above overview shows that Chinese economists were obviously influenced by List on trade and development issues，as List was mentioned or alluded to in their writings.Their closeness to List in position was surely no coincidence，since quite some Chinese held List in esteem rationally after having made comparisons between the doctrine of Adam Smith and that of List，and between the situations of China and other countries.It is undeniable that China was already well-equipped in the first half of the 20th century with the theoretical sophistication needed for industrial development，just as it is undeniable that the ruling Nationalist government demonstrated an impressive orientation towards modernization.
However，neither the theoretical sophistication of the academia nor the modernization orientation of the government led to solid outcomes in China ’s economic and social progress.Indeed，the Nationalist government itself collapsed in the Communist takeover in 1949.The reasons for this abrupt turn were basically threefold： （ⅰ） the Nationalist government could never tame the armed opposition from other domestic forces，which constituted a perennial and mounting disturbance to national reconstruction；（ⅱ） the protracted Japanese invasion broke down fatally the hard-earned initiation of industrialization and modernization；and （ⅲ） the overall level of the national wealth and strength was far too low to create any immediate wonder.
What China had achieved by the mid-20th century was a type of“lop-sided development” fairly typical of the early stage performance of countries under“prepheralization pressures”，but still appreciable enough.The development is regarded lopsided，because： （ⅰ） it was primarily driven by foreign capital that dominated China ’s key sectors such as steel and iron production，coal mining，power generation，foreign trade，banking，shipping，etc.；（ⅱ） the development was limited to the enclave of “treaty port” cities，with the vast countryside undergoing painful transformation following the erosion of the traditional economic and social fabric；and（ⅲ） the economic growth was based on the export of primary commodities，with light industries，textile in particular，seriously suppressed by the Japanese competition，and the heavy industry making only a modest start.On the whole，the Chinese manufacturing remained at a seriously underdeveloped stage.
Both the achievements and difficulties of the Chinese initial development are readily seen from the statistics: in the early 1920s，modern industries and handcraft industries took up respectively 4.9% and 10.8% in the overall industrial and agricultural output，growing to 10.8% and 20.5%respectively in 1936，more or less a pre-war peak year；the import of light industrial products decreased from 54.6% in 1912 to 14.3% in 1936，whereas the import of heavy industrial products increased from 13.7% to 47%during the same period；and the proportion of the urbanized population expanded slowly from 5.1% in 1843 to 10.6% in 1949，further testifying to the sluggish but undeniable advance of the modern Chinese development.[22]