How far can the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 be considered the key turning point in the development of China in the years 1900-2000?

During the years 1900-2000 there were many turning points in China's history. We saw such things as The fall of the Qing Dynasty and imperialism February 1912, The warlord era 1915, The rise of the nationalists 1928, The formation of the PRC in 1949, The Korean and Vietnam wars 1950 and 1964, Nixon's visit in 1972 and Deng Xiaoping's Third Plenum. The key Turing point in China's history would have to be the rise of Deng Xiaoping in 1976. The reason behind this is by looking at social political, economic and international development Deng achieved greater positive development over the 4 topics and few limitations in comparison to the other turning points.
The fall of imperialism and the Qing dynasty in 1912 lead to some major development in China.in china at the time there was a huge social divide. This was most notable in the rural regions where in some communities some people were consuming up to 4000 calories per day, while others were only consuming 1400. Likewise socially development in china was far behind the rest of the world. At the time China had a literacy rate of only 3.6% while Japan had a rate of 26.3% however, during the Qing dynasty economically they were prospering and catching up with the rest of Asia. This was best shown by jack Gary’s Rebellions and revolutions where he puts a more positive spin on the Dynasty. Gray shows that GDP was growing in China from CH$113 to CH$123 in the years 1905-1910. Industrialisation was growing at 6% per year, railway mileage by 8% and foreign trade by 2.5% per annum and boasted the largest textiles Industry in the world. And lastly before the Sino-Japanese war China didn’t have heavy debt. 40 Million Taels had been borrowed for various projects however;