Is China’s economic rise incompatible with its identity as a developing nation? Experts clashed over this question during a recent live-streamed debate hosted by CGTN’s ‘Talking China,’ highlighting the complex realities shaping Asia’s largest economy.
Liu Zhiqin, a senior fellow at Renmin University of China’s Chongyang Institute, argued that regional imbalances keep China firmly within the Global South. ‘The western, central, and southwestern regions still lag significantly behind first-tier cities like Shanghai or Beijing,’ he said, emphasizing that GDP alone doesn’t define development status. Liu pointed to shared historical experiences with former colonial powers as a unifying thread between China and other Global South nations.
Countering this view, University of Hong Kong scholar Li Cheng noted China’s position as the world’s second-largest economy, with GDP per capita nearing $13,000. ‘Labeling China as very poor misses the reality of its transformation,’ Li stated, urging nations worldwide to approach development narratives with greater nuance.
The debate underscores broader questions about how to categorize modern China – a manufacturing superpower that still faces rural poverty rates exceeding 30% in some provinces. Both experts agreed that cross-regional cooperation and empathy between nations remain critical for addressing global inequality.
