China, showing the possibility of rapid economic development without exploiting other countries, without wars and through peaceful development, has become a material and theoretical inspiration for developing nations in the pursuit of development, according to a British economist.
In an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), John Ross, former director of economic policy for the mayor of London, and a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said China plays a role as a locomotive for global growth and sets a model for other developing countries.
By World Bank standards, China, the biggest of the developing economies, will become a high income economy in about two to three years. Therefore, two thirds of the world will still be developing economies.
"China is absolutely crucial in this for two reasons. Firstly, because it's by far the biggest of the developing economies. Therefore, it's a locomotive - not many for the world economy as a whole - but in particular for the Global South countries. And secondly, because the lessons of its successful development, its huge investments in research and development, its investments in infrastructure, its leading role in new industries, new productive forces as they're known is what these other countries want to achieve," said he.
"China is now, we may say, one of the most developed of the developing countries. It's relatively soon going to make the transition to a high income economy. And it therefore shows the path which the rest of the Global South and developing countries need to follow. Therefore, it's both a material lender, you might say, and theoretical inspiration for what they're doing," he said.
The world is entering one of the greatest transitions to green energy in its history, and China is absolutely at the core of this, Ross said.
"At the traditional source of world energy, coal was replaced by electricity and by oil. Whereas we're going to have something completely different, which is renewable energy. China is absolutely at the core of this because it's become the world's leader in the production of green energy. That also means that China's economy is going to be integrated with other economies in a different way," he said.
China offers material and theoretical inspiration for developing nations: UK economist
China offers material and theoretical inspiration for developing nations: UK economist
