Persia, after the second Russo-Persian war, as the British give it support as a proxy against Russia in the "Great Game"
India, as a "second Britain" ; again as Britain putting a wall south of Russia to halt their expansion
Cochin China.
Massive natural resources, good money supply, lots of cultural mixing, liberal French administration, lots and lots of opportunities for some faction or group to start something weird but profitable.
"Help from outside" is often mentioned for industrialization but it tends to be utterly lacking in examples of European assistance in setting up a manufacturing base. In places like Persia, where there is security concerns, the European response wouldn't be to encourage local industry, but to sell them arms and train the military; the obvious exterior factors of European military power but either of little import or negative (as local arms industries are wiped out in favor of European imports), for actual industrialization.
The great non-European industrialized, Japan, succeeded in the economic sphere despite, not because of, European influence, and modernized on their own initiative. Well, other than knowing that the sword of Damocles was perched above their heads and would certainly execute th if they did not... Europe assisted Japan in modernization, but in active assistance it is without surprise that the military missions are famous while I have never heard of an equivalent economic program which would form the base for Japanese industrialization. In addition, the ability to play off the European powers for influence while not becoming their collective captive like Thailand was certainly vital.
With direct colonies like French Indochina and India this is further amplified. English policy in India favored the import of English goods over local manufacture, and they destroyed local industries and de-industrialized the sub-continent, both by direct means (as an example there was a salt industry in India that the British drove out of existence by abolishing import tariffs while implementing excise taxes on the salt producers) and by indirect means (flooding India with British products). In Indochina the French effects were much the same. Some localized industry did eventually grow up in British India, such as steel and textiles (I do not know what French Indochina industry was like), but it was probably delayed, not encouraged, by European colonialism.
In fact, the European reaponse to security issues in their colonies was often to try to freeze them in time to prevent the instability of social change from taking place... well, except for the European railroads, plantations, and mines, but somehow native culture was able to take these institutions which made a profit for Europeans while other destabilizing ideas like mass education, governmental reform, democracy, allowing natives high into colonial administration, ideas of liberalism, so on and so forth were obviously incompatible...
China already started limited reforms to industrialise in order to build up its military strength as early as the 1860s, but generally failed.
If they had greater political will to pursue wider reforms (like reforming other areas like government, finance, etc to support industrialisation as Japan did, instead of just trying to build factories and shipyards to copy modern weapons), then they might have succeeded.
China has a host of social problems beyond just the government ineptness. Wages in China were low, lower than Japan from my recollection, and the problem wasn't insufficient productivity but rather unemployment. There in not really an incentive for China to really modernize and develop, beyond building up military forces, because doing so will increase internal tensions and disorder in a government trying desperately to achieve stability. The focus on military matters alone just makes one into another tin pot military state. A Chinese government with superior administration can help, but the Chinese situation is from the outset less favorable than Japan's for achieving a broad industrialization.