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This article doesn't quite make sense to me. It keeps confusing per capita with overall size. Like the old joke goes, America has more people per capita. Going

This article doesn't quite make sense to me. It keeps confusing per capita with overall size. Like the old joke goes, America has more people per capita. Going by the same logic, can we say that India is more developed than Singapore? And all the small anecdotes showing developed status such as that GIF of Shanghai growing or skyscrapers in Chinese cities are misleading and pointless. You could take similarly modern photos in cities of developing countries all over the world. That doesn't make any of them any more developed. And statements like these are patently absurd: "But few of them other than China have produced companies with enough money and ambition to put one of their products in the hands of Iron Man and have ads splashed all over soccer stadiums at the World Cup". Most developing countries are home to large corporations as well. Burger King is Brazilian and I'm sure it has placed ads in many prominent events. Does this mean that Brazil is suddenly no longer a developing nation? And the last part about how a country cannot be classified into developing or developed status because of inequality makes absolutely no sense at all. Sure Shanghai is developed compared to Yunnan. But that's not the point. The point is that as a whole, China is still very poor. As long as a large part of the country is poor and in need of modern infrastructure, it is developing. As compared to countries like Japan where almost EVERY part of it is developed. That's the whole point. The US created the rules of WTO. Now it wants to change the rules when it thinks it is not winning by resorting to semantic games like these.

azurezyq 8y ago
I think the major claim in the post is that labels can't be attached to such a diverse monster as a whole. Actually I'm wondering if trade happening at the country level. You can easily build a developed country by definition size of Japan by combining several coastal provinces. And that's mostly where"made in China" comes from.
alanwong 8y ago
Did it confuse per capita with overall? I thought it made it clear that: in terms of per capita GNI, China isn't a developed country. But in the context of the WTO, Trump has framed the question of whether China is a developed country as a matter of fairness. Developing nations get perks – they're allowed leeway in phasing out their trade policies that protect certain sectors. A central question here is that China is more powerful than any single per capita metric is able to reflect, and therefore may not deserve the kind of flexibility that WTO affords to unquestionably weak and "developing" countries who struggle to transform into a market economy. China sees itself a developing country, but it's arguable whether it needs the kind of flexibility the WTO gives other developing countries. The logical next question in this context is, are the labels "developing" and "developed" good enough to determine which countries should get preferential treatment in international trade? That the labels are no longer adequate in many applications is further highlighted by the fact that China is so diverse and vast that there are parts of it that are basically developed countries in their own right, judging by their per capita income levels. On the other hands, there are many provinces that are indisputably low-income by all accepted standards. The point that China is by and large poor by Western standards is addressed in the first part of the article, and stressed again later. But again, does having a large population of people who live in abject poverty warrant a country differential treatment by an international trade body in areas that have little to do with the poverty?
- jimmydef 8y ago
  > The logical next question in this context is, are the labels "developing" and "developed" good enough to determine which countries should get preferential treatment in international trade? Many economists would think so and the WTO was set up with that rule precisely because people knew that it is an uneven playing field between the companies from rich and poor countries. Without protectionism, the nascent industries in developing nations would get crushed. Almost all major industrialised nations developed by starting out with protectionism. > That the labels are no longer adequate in many applications is further highlighted by the fact that China is so diverse and vast that there are parts of it that are basically developed countries in their own right, judging by their per capita income levels. On the other hands, there are many provinces that are indisputably low-income by all accepted standards. Here, you are confusing per capita and overall again. Why do labels no longer matter just because China is larger than most nations? Does per capita income no longer work the same way if the population size is larger? There are rich areas in many South American countries but no one would claim that these labels no longer matter for those nations just because there are some rich people or places. Why is it so different for China?
  - dnomad 8y ago
    > Here, you are confusing per capita and overall again. Why do labels no longer matter just because China is larger than most nations? Does per capita income no longer work the same way if the population size is larger? What really scares people about China is that it is a developing country that does not behave like a developing country. It is actually getting better, making more right moves than not, and it is setting itself up to become a major contributor to the planet's wealth. This absolutely terrifies many in the West who had always thought China would "follow the playbook" and not become much more than a corrupt, heavily indebted "workhorse economy" where manufacturing could be easily outsourced. > There are rich areas in many South American countries but no one would claim that these labels no longer matter for those nations just because there are some rich people or places. Why is it so different for China? The anti-China bigotry at work here by definition must take China to be exceptional. Any rational comparison of China to other nations would conclude pretty obviously that China is still, on the whole, desperately poor. But this is not about rational analysis and it probably never was.

azurezyq 8y ago

I think the major claim in the post is that labels can't be attached to such a diverse monster as a whole. Actually I'm wondering if trade happening at the country level. You can easily build a developed country by definition size of Japan by combining several coastal provinces. And that's mostly where"made in China" comes from.

alanwong 8y ago

Did it confuse per capita with overall? I thought it made it clear that: in terms of per capita GNI, China isn't a developed country. But in the context of the WTO, Trump has framed the question of whether China is a developed country as a matter of fairness. Developing nations get perks – they're allowed leeway in phasing out their trade policies that protect certain sectors. A central question here is that China is more powerful than any single per capita metric is able to reflect, and therefore may not deserve the kind of flexibility that WTO affords to unquestionably weak and "developing" countries who struggle to transform into a market economy. China sees itself a developing country, but it's arguable whether it needs the kind of flexibility the WTO gives other developing countries. The logical next question in this context is, are the labels "developing" and "developed" good enough to determine which countries should get preferential treatment in international trade? That the labels are no longer adequate in many applications is further highlighted by the fact that China is so diverse and vast that there are parts of it that are basically developed countries in their own right, judging by their per capita income levels. On the other hands, there are many provinces that are indisputably low-income by all accepted standards. The point that China is by and large poor by Western standards is addressed in the first part of the article, and stressed again later. But again, does having a large population of people who live in abject poverty warrant a country differential treatment by an international trade body in areas that have little to do with the poverty?

jimmydef 8y ago
> The logical next question in this context is, are the labels "developing" and "developed" good enough to determine which countries should get preferential treatment in international trade? Many economists would think so and the WTO was set up with that rule precisely because people knew that it is an uneven playing field between the companies from rich and poor countries. Without protectionism, the nascent industries in developing nations would get crushed. Almost all major industrialised nations developed by starting out with protectionism. > That the labels are no longer adequate in many applications is further highlighted by the fact that China is so diverse and vast that there are parts of it that are basically developed countries in their own right, judging by their per capita income levels. On the other hands, there are many provinces that are indisputably low-income by all accepted standards. Here, you are confusing per capita and overall again. Why do labels no longer matter just because China is larger than most nations? Does per capita income no longer work the same way if the population size is larger? There are rich areas in many South American countries but no one would claim that these labels no longer matter for those nations just because there are some rich people or places. Why is it so different for China?
- dnomad 8y ago
  > Here, you are confusing per capita and overall again. Why do labels no longer matter just because China is larger than most nations? Does per capita income no longer work the same way if the population size is larger? What really scares people about China is that it is a developing country that does not behave like a developing country. It is actually getting better, making more right moves than not, and it is setting itself up to become a major contributor to the planet's wealth. This absolutely terrifies many in the West who had always thought China would "follow the playbook" and not become much more than a corrupt, heavily indebted "workhorse economy" where manufacturing could be easily outsourced. > There are rich areas in many South American countries but no one would claim that these labels no longer matter for those nations just because there are some rich people or places. Why is it so different for China? The anti-China bigotry at work here by definition must take China to be exceptional. Any rational comparison of China to other nations would conclude pretty obviously that China is still, on the whole, desperately poor. But this is not about rational analysis and it probably never was.