Opinion | US efforts to strip China of its ‘developing nation’ tag reflect an increasingly polarised world

The unanimous vote by the US House of Representatives to deprive China of its status as a “developing country” is set to open a new diplomatic row between Washington and Beijing, dealing another blow to an already-fragile global governance system.

It is not the first time that the two countries have quarrelled over the economic status of China. The Chinese government, for instance, tried for about a decade to persuade the US and EU, two of its largest trading partners, to treat China as a market economy – a move that would help Chinese exporters in anti-dumping cases and give Beijing a nominal thumbs up to its economic liberalisation efforts.

The “market economy” label affects how fair prices are calculated in anti-dumping cases, but the “developing country” tag is much more important to China due to its political and economic implications. The latter represents the core of the country’s self-positioning since it began to officially join international bodies in the 1970s.

For the past half-century or so, the “developing country” label has become the default basis on which China participates in international organisations and strikes agreements ranging from trade to climate change.

When dealing with Washington, Beijing has now and again returned to the line that the US is the world’s largest developed economy, while China is the largest developing economy.

The latest efforts by US politicians to revoke China’s “developing country” status will be seen by Beijing as another trick by Washington to contain and suppress the nation’s development. The full bipartisan support towards the PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act only shows the depth of the anger and hostility against China.