Many of the educated public in Western countries have doubted China’s claim that it is still a “developing country.” Indeed, much evidence has been cited to support this point of view: skyscrapers lighting the night in large Chinese cities, high-speed bullet trains roaming throughout the country, Chinese customers filling up luxurious brand stores overseas, and successful technological innovation of Chinese companies. However, sitting on a high-speed bullet train from Nanjing to Beijing and seriously considering the issue, I feel it would be fundamentally misleading to consider China as a fully developed and modernized country.

One argument which is often used to refute the “China as developed country” thesis is the variety within China. Though no country is monolithic and homogeneous, China may be worthy of some special treatment. In particular, the extremely rapid economic development since 1980s contributed significantly to the varieties in economic status within the country. In major Chinese cities such as Nanjing and Beijing, it is easy to see that the economic gaps between urban sectors are much larger than major Western cities, which reflects the large gaps in economic status within the Chinese society.

Nonetheless, I feel a more fundamental and powerful challenge to the “China as developed country” thesis is to broaden our understanding of development and modernization. At present, too much attention has been paid to the narrow economic and technological sense of the term. Take education as an example. In American and British universities, most courses (both undergraduate and graduate) are either seminars or have a seminar component. However, no Chinese college student could imagine such lavish use of educational resources. Most undergraduate courses and many graduate courses are lecture-only. Another way to illustrate the point is to compare the experiences of Ph.D. students. Ph.D. students in most American universities are fully funded, with many additional financial support opportunities for their research projects. In comparison, Chinese Ph.D. students usually have to conduct their research with much less financial support. American and British higher education systems have been seriously criticized for their high fees, but it’s undeniable that the educational resources they could devote to students are far greater than their Chinese counterparts.

Education is just one example of many specific aspects of development that deserves the focus of serious observers, including medical service, labor welfare, and social capital. For both China and other countries, this more sophisticated and careful understanding of development is imperative to prevent mis-perceptions and illusions. As the discussion about the “rise” of China becomes more and more popular in both China and abroad, the importance of accurate understanding could not be exaggerated.

 

By Zhongtian Han, Sigur Center Summer 2018 Field Research Grant Fellow. Zhongtian is a history Ph.D. student at George Washington University. He is interested in modern East Asia and strategic studies, and his research focuses on the strategic history of modern China and Japan.