China Tosses Out the Developed Nation Playbook
Contenders for South Korea’s presidential election gathered for a debate in March. Since the late 1980s, political pluralism has been a key feature of the increasingly sophisticated economy to China’s east. Beijing, however, isn’t interested in that strategy.
Photographer: Lee Young-ho/SipaFor decades, China rode a wave of economic success by following what its neighbors had done. But now it has truly veered from that path—foreshadowing a potential failure to achieve upper income, or developed-economy, status.
Authoritarian governments in South Korea and Taiwan showed how to pull millions of people out of poverty by overseeing rapid and sustained economic growth propelled by an export-led model. Bill Overholt, drawing on his research at (now-defunct) Bankers Trust, recognized how that could be applied in the People’s Republic of China in his 1993 book, The Rise of China.