Japan gets far more credit than it's due. By the 1930s, Japan essentially managed to become the military, industrial, and economic equal to Italy. Japan's development in today's terms was equivalent to China's in 2001. Its industry was heavily dependent on foreign technology, licensing, machinery, machine tools, and components. Its military and industrial capabilities were a fraction of that of the Germans, Americans, Soviets, and even British.
As for the Qing, they greatly expanded Chinese territory and served as a useful scapegoat for blaming China's weakness and backwardness during the 19th century. There is no reason to believe China would have fared any better under an alternative dynasty. Perhaps we would have just ended up with a smaller, more resource constrained and strategically vulnerable China without control over Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and possibly even Yunnan.
As usual, the resistance is humane to a fault.