1978 wasn't that long ago and the economy was not fully open until 1995 or so.
KMT had 37 years, while CPC had achievements as early as 1959. Indeed, the 1950's saw greater economic growth than KMT times, while social indicators such as literacy rate, infant mortality and lifespan had massive progress even during the cultural revolution. CPC built a hydrogen bomb (1967, months before France) and nuclear attack submarine (1970, 10 years before Rubis) before France, a traditional European industrial power. There was absolutely no instance of the KMT ever having a major technological milestone before another industrial country in all of history, not one.
Here's the difference between KMT in 1945 and CPC in 1978: CPC in 1978 had leverage. KMT had no leverage. There was nothing that the KMT could provide to the West that the West did not already own, so what could the KMT demand in return? It comes back to the question of ownership. As both Adam Smith and Marx noted, it matters little who produces something - it matters who controls the profits and the means of production. KMT had no leverage thus the ownership of profits and technology belongs to foreigners alone. CPC had leverage so the foreigners had to transfer both technologies and profits until 1990 or so.
Also, the KMT started from a very low industrial base: less than 100 tons of steel production per year. With such a low industrial base, the most profitable ventures would NOT be to industrialize. Instead it'd be a focus on raw material export, agriculture and services, then exchanging those for manufactured goods from the outside world. Remember back in the day there was no globalization.