China on cusp of joining high-income club, but slowdown raises spectre of middle-income trap
- Beijing officials trumpet dazzling economic figures to make case the country can escape middle-income trap
- However, some inconvenient statistics point to a worrying trend for the world’s second-largest economy
Chinese officials like to use numbers to describe the country’s economic miracle.
So that is what Han Wenxiu, a senior official with the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, did when he summarised almost a decade of achievements under President Xi Jinping in mid-May.
He threw out a string of dazzling figures at a news briefing: the world’s No 2 economy, with gross domestic product (GDP) of 114 trillion yuan (US$17 trillion) last year, accounting for 18 per cent of global GDP – up from 11.4 per cent in 2012 – and contributing 30 per cent of global GDP growth in that time.
“We are close to the threshold of high-income countries,” Han said.
Statistically, China already stands at the doorstep of the high-income club, defined by the World Bank as those with gross national income per capita above US$12,695 in 2021. China’s was US$12,551 last year.