China's economy growing incredibly to become superpower

The chinese economic miracle is a story that the world has come to know well. China underwent rapid economic growth and modernization in the 20^th century to emerge as the world's second largest economy. Today this rise took it from an impoverished country where famines were frequent and lives were short to one of the richest nations in the world.

 walk around any chinese city today and the huge displays of wealth are hard to miss from the super rich with their Ferraris to the growing middle class who have an insatiable appetite for luxury goods

 China has money but how did they go from rundown cities that were nothing compared to their western counterparts two futuristic skylines with some of the world's tallest buildings in the space of just 30 years.

 The chinese economy was just 1.79 percent of total world gdp in 1980 and by 2017 it had risen to 15.24 of the total which is an incredible rate of growth and a story that many of the world's poorest nations today hope to follow to understand how china got so rich over the past few decades.

we first have to look back at why they were such a poor country as this wasn't always the case in fact during the song dynasty china was the richest country in the world the great divergence between the Chinese and european economies came during the 19th century as europe underwent the industrial revolution. 

China's lowest point came during the period from 1839 to 1949 which they call the century of humiliation as Chinese territory fell into the hands of western imperial powers and the country suffered military defeats to the british in the opium wars and the Japanese in the sino-japanese wars following a civil war the communist party took over

The modern state of the people's republic of china was born - the country continued to be beset by problems including the great famine which left millions of chinese dead by the time of mao's death in 1976.

China was a fringe country both economically and politically and there was certainly no reason to believe that would change anytime soon the man who emerged as the new de facto leader of china was deng xiaoping and he had big plans for the future of the country. He  then launched a series of reforms throughout the 1980s that cemented china's path forward land that was previously managed by communes was split up and farmers were allowed to own and manage their own land.

 The land ownership rights of farmers and commercialization of agriculture are credited with increasing productivity and making starvation a thing of the past private companies were allowed and china was opened up for overseas investment.

During this period, the chinese government essentially moved the country from a planned economic model to a market economy. In the early days of these reforms, the government adopted a dual track economic system where some commodities were sold at a planned lower price but everything above a certain quota was sold at a price set by the market this was abolished in 1989, when they embraced a full market economy the most notable of the reforms however was the formation of special economic zones.

 These are cities within china that have economic freedom and the ability to set economic policy independently of the central government. They were created with the aim of attracting foreign investment fostering partnerships between chinese and overseas companies and fully embracing a free market model as the first area to be designated a special economic zone.

 

The city of shenzhen has come to be a symbol of this era of reform located just north of hong kong it was designated as china's first special economic zone in 1980 

At the time shenzhen was a collection of small towns and villages whose total population numbered in the tens of thousands, today it is a mega city of over 12 million. It is fair to say that without these economic reforms shenzhen as one of china's largest and most prosperous cities wouldn't exist today. 

As the city has grown many other regions ,china paid attention and even today whenever a new large-scale development project is launched anywhere in china, it is often touted as the next Shenzhen economic reforms were further strengthened throughout the 1980s and 1990s with private enterprises given more freedoms under chinese law.

As more people sought to move to china's cities for a better life with dreams of opening up a company or climbing the corporate ladder both things impossible a generation earlier urban populations rose the traditional huco household registration system, which restricted movement of people and basically tied them to living in the town that they were born inwas relaxed and millions moved from their rural villages and hometowns to the cities.

China's vast population previously a liability when there are a lot of miles to feed and not enough food to go around became an asset as the country industrialized on mass government policy which favored light manufacturing gave tax breaks and other incentives which led more and more entrepreneurs to open factories and workshops. 

A huge construction boom was set off as cities expanded their boundaries and built new districts key infrastructure was built like roads and public transit systems to facilitate the movement of people around cities and between the different urban areas hospitals schools and more modern housing were all built to accommodate the huge influx of people.

This led to a self-sustaining cycle as cheap well-trained labour attracted more domestic and foreign companies which led to more infrastructure investment and better infrastructure attracted more companies and workers over time.

The disparity in the quality of life between cities and the countryside grew leading more and more people to migrate to the city for work, this difference in quality of life is apparent not only in access to better services in the city but also in workers salaries.

 

In 2020 the average salary of a rural household was just one-third that of an urban household and the gap continues to rise every year as more people move to the cities their populations ballooned today china has over 100 cities with a population over 1 million and is home to six of the world's mega cities each of which has a population of at least 10 million development is mostly centered on china's eastern and southern coast whilst there is still relatively little development in the far west of the country the coastal area is home to some of china's richest cities like shanghai and shenzhen whilst the centre of the country is home to most of china's industrial cities 

This process of urbanization hasn't finished yet as china still has a way to go before it reaches the levels of industrialized nations. In 1980, 19 of chinese people lived in cities with the remaining 81 percent being peasant farmers living in rural communities, today 59 of citizens are city dwellers and that figure is growing every year. China's big cities and investments in education have led to a well-educated upwardly mobile workforce spurred by the success of china's early internet companies.

In the early 2000s, huge networks of researchers, entrepreneurs, and investment funds have formed a booming tech. sector which attracts huge inflows of capital from domestic and overseas investors whilst china's early economic growth was driven largely by manufacturing and construction from the 2000s onwards. An increasing portion of growth has come from innovations in technology and science.

China's economic rise from the 1980s to today has lifted an entire country out of the clutches of poverty. The poverty rate in 1981 was 88 whilst by 2015 it had dropped to just 0.7 percent by almost all measures the life of the average chinese person has improved drastically in the years since china opened up its economy rising wages social mobility and better education all contribute to people's sense of an inexorable rise. 

This economic miracle has taken the country on a journey from an impoverished agrarian society shut out of an increasingly globalized world to an industrial giant known as the factory of the world and widely condemned for the polluting effects of its industries to what it is increasingly becoming today a country focused on the future with high-tech industries making up an increasing portion of its economy. No doubt, china has its share of social and economic problems and the future is far from certain but what nobody can deny is that the path it has taken to become the country that it is today.

The sheer speed of its rise has been nothing short of breathtaking which leaves the question where next? how does the chinese government plan to secure growth for the future? Will china unseat the usa from its spot as the biggest economy by total gdp? What will be the potential impacts of the current unfolding economic crisis on chinese economic growth over the next few years?