Very true. The Nationalists were an oppressive, corrupt regime. They would probably not be able to pull off the extensive modernization that the Communists acheived.
To be fair, the Nanjing Decade saw Chiang having to deal with: a series of recalcitrant warlords, the Communists, the effects of the Great Depression, and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and their expansion in northern China. It's a sign of China's weakness that America plunged the Chinese economy into recession unintentionally by propping up the price of silver.
As it stands, they did a middling-good job given those circumstances.