The Boao Forum symbolizes China's rise
- By John Ross
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 24, 2016
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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, March 24, 2016. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) |
The annual Boao Forum is a key expression in the global economic and business discussion of China's rise. It therefore provides a suitable opportunity to reflect not only on the material but on the international intellectual impact of China's economic development. This equally casts a clear historical light on current attempts in sections of the international media to talk down China's economic prospects.
When the Forum was initiated in 1998, it was initially seen internationally as an Asian regional event not widely followed elsewhere. Now, the Forum has become one of the world's most studied economic events.
The prevailing intellectual atmosphere in the West in the period leading to the Forum's creation was symbolized by one of the most famous, and most erroneous, articles by a Western economist, "The Myth of Asia's Miracle" by Paul Krugman. Published in 1994 in Foreign Affairs, the US's most prestigious foreign policy publication, this argued that the significance of Asia's economic rise was overstated and "from the perspective of the year 2010" claims regarding Asia's rise would seem as ridiculous as exaggerated claims in the 1960s by the USSR's Khruschev. Enthusiasm concerning Asia's growth "deserves to have some cold water thrown on it" and "future prospects for that growth are more limited than almost anyone now believes."
The reason that claims for Asian economies, referred to as "paper tigers", were allegedly exaggerated was that Asia had wrongly failed to follow a "Western" economic development model. China and Singapore were particularly criticized, which was due to "perspiration rather than inspiration," and represented "the most extreme" case of this erroneous Asian approach.
Facts in the following 20 years have devastatingly dated Krugman and other non-Asians' arrogance. Singapore overtook the US in per capita GDP - achieving 103% of the US level at current exchange rates and 144% at Parity Purchasing Powers. While Singapore's performance might be explained away by it being a small country, no evasion could be made regarding the Boao Forum's host China.
China, after 1978, achieved the fastest growth over a prolonged period by a major economy in human history. China's poverty reduction dwarfs the rest of the planet. By World Bank international classification, China lifted 728 million people from poverty compared to 152 million in the rest of the world.
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