Vietnam is a likely-ish candidate. It did have an industry relatively early on but for most of its recent history it was separated between North and South and kept in a cycle of war.
Obviously that's not a major issue in itself but they had other problems.
Vietnamese leadership was extremely ticklish about christianity and its christian population which meant that a lot of ideas they could have gotten from Europe were snuffed out.
But then ok, maybe it could have still pulled a Meiji? Sure, when France took Cochinchina it was not great but it was not a vital region, they had acquired it relatively recently from Cambodia. This happened in the early 1860's. There was another "war" in 1873 when Francis Garnier went on a joy ride in the Hanoi delta but the following treaty wasn't TOO harsh on Vietnam and actually freed it from Chinese influence. There they could have used this opportunity to grow as France was wary enough not to invade them further but not too wary to keep foreign powers to carve Vietnam up.
If by then you have a strong Vietnamese leader accepting French "protection" (not the protectorate of 1884, just being in the French sphere of influence) and using this to train his army and get guns to clean the Northern delta and assert his authority with French support they could get very powerful.
The French were interested in Vietnam for its commercial opportunities as well as opening the road to Southern China. If you allow French capital and protect French trade in the region it looks unlikely they would do a full on colonisation as OTL.
If you wanna start earlier, get Louis XVI to go full on with Pigneau de Béhaine support of Gia Long. A French army would help him unify and conquer Vietnam faster. The French would get the port of Da Nang and very favourable terms as well with a stronger relationship thereafter. That would be a very interesting PoD