In fact, in some economic areas – such as exports, foreign reserves, mobile phone and internet usage and car sales – China now tops the world. In the past decade, it has become the chief engine of global growth.

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Throughout this period, its rising wealth has grown its presence and influence overseas, enabling it to fund programmes and infrastructure projects across the developing world, from Asia to Africa and Latin America.

A DEVELOPING GIANT

There’s no doubt; China’s economic influence is massive. Nevertheless, China is still neither an advanced nor a developed country. Nor can it properly be described as a rich nation. It is a developing giant on the world stage.

This fact is part of a wider truth about China that is sometimes lost in all the hype about its rise. Yes, it has risen to new heights in many areas and become a globally influential power in the past 10 years. But it is still not a true superpower, even if it is emerging as a strong contender to become one. To be a true superpower, a country must wield global influence in many, varied spheres: in economics, in science and technology, in military matters and in soft power.

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China might score an A on its end-of-term report for economics, given that it is the world’s second-largest economy, its largest manufacturing hub and a leading exporter of mechanised goods.

The PLA can only look on enviably at the American navy’s near invincibility and ability to exert and project power anywhere in the world – a privilege it has enjoyed unrivalled since the end of World War II.

But in other subjects, including science and technology, China’s report card is less impressive. Despite its swift rise in telecommunications, new energy and artificial intelligence over the past decade, it still has much to learn from the developed West in the traditional sciences, academic research and education.

Just take a look at the history of the Nobel Prize since it was first handed out in 1901. Since then, Europeans have won 481 Nobel Prizes; Americans, 375. Within Europe, Britain has won 133; Germany, 108; while even smaller Western nations like Switzerland, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands have earned between 20 and 30 each. To date, China has just three Nobel Prizes; one for science, one for literature and one for peace (the last of which was awarded against Beijing’s will).

This explains why Miao Yu, China’s former minister of science and technology, rates China’s scientific research as “fourth tier”, lagging the US in the first tier; Japan, Germany, Britain and France in the second; and other developed nations, such as Canada, Italy, Australia and Israel, in the third.

All these weaknesses must be addressed if China is to reach the status of developed country, or advanced economy. And it must reach this status if it is to earn the respect of the world, something it so craves.

GOING SOFT

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While surveys by the Pew Research Centre have found African countries to have generally positive views of China, with four countries surveyed last year returning an average favourability rating of 62 per cent, perceptions of China in the US and across Europe are generally negative, with more than eight in 10 Europeans believing that China doesn’t protect the personal freedoms of its own people. Perhaps more surprisingly, even polls in three Latin American countries – Brazil, Mexico and Argentina – suggested negative views of China. These views are in stark contrast to views of Japan, the most respected country in Asia.

There are a host of other areas, such as the environment, in which China ranks either low or very low. For instance, since 2012, the International Energy Agency has ranked China as the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. And, on various global indices, China ranks 72nd for globalisation; 79th for corruption; 87th for gender equality; 90th in human development; 100th in life expectancy; 110th in economic freedom; and 133rd in the environment and sustainability.

It ranks even lower in areas related to politics and human rights. For instance, China was 135th out of 162 countries in the 2018 Human Freedom Index, compiled by the Washington-based CATO Institute; 177th out of 180 in the Press Freedom Index compiled by Paris-based Reporters Without Borders; and was rock bottom for the third consecutive year for internet freedom, according to New York-based Freedom House in 2017. This suggests outcries over China’s human rights record have often been drowned out by the cheers for its economic miracle.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

While China has made great strides in the past four decades, its leaders are more nervous now than ever about their grip on power and international standing. The country’s most daunting challenges, internally and externally, lie ahead.

The economy has lost momentum over the past decade as its growth rate has steadily dropped. It was 14.23 per cent in 2007; 9.5 per cent in 2011; 7.3 per cent in 2014; and 6.6 per cent last year. That downward trend has accelerated quarter by quarter since last year and the latest figures suggest this will continue. The 6.2 per cent growth of the April-June period was the lowest quarterly figure since records began in March 1992.

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China’s economic woes are not exclusively about growth figures, but also about the future of its model of state-led capitalism. Despite its claims to be a socialist nation, China has yawning social contradictions and one of the world’s biggest wealth gaps. In 1980, the richest 1 per cent of people owned 6.4 per cent of the country’s wealth; in 2015, that figure was 13.9 per cent. In 1980, the poorest half of the population held 26.7 per cent of the wealth; now they hold just 14.8 per cent.

In politics, the country has become more divided than at any time in recent memory. Not since the death of Mao has China seemed this ideologically driven. Orthodox Marxism and Maoist policies have been revived and many Chinese feel the country is moving inexorably towards greater authoritarianism.

HONG KONG AND BEYOND

China’s rise comes amid an increasingly hostile international environment – one that has been stirred up by Beijing’s high-profile displays of its rising might and power abroad.

The continuing unrest and frequent violence have plunged the city into the worst political and constitutional crisis since the British handed sovereignty back to China in 1997.

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Tensions are rising ahead of the island’s presidential elections in January. A 2018 survey by the Cross-Strait Policy Association found that nearly 80 per cent of Taiwanese felt mainland China was “unfriendly towards Taiwan”, suggesting Tsai’s stance on ties with the mainland may be a vote winner.

Xi, keen to revive China’s national greatness, has swapped Deng’s low-key diplomacy for an increasingly high-profile posture that many analysts believe has contributed to the growing US-China competition for leadership on the regional and global levels.

Critics say the party’s inflated propaganda about Chinese achievements on the world stage has contributed to this increasingly hostile environment by raising suspicions of its motives.

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Many in Western capitals believe Xi is seeking to promote China’s unique model of authoritarianism and state capitalism as an alternative form of governance for developing countries to emulate. Harvard-educated Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama and many US politicians have warned that China under Xi may end up showing the world a hitherto-unimagined form of 21st century totalitarianism.

BEST OF TIMES, WORST OF TIMES

Thus after 70 years of communist rule, the picture that confronts us today is one of China at the best of times, and the worst of times.

While the economic successes of the past 40 years cannot be ignored, political theory and history suggest it is only constitutionally free democracies that can make that final step to becoming advanced and developed economies.

To date, every single nation to have joined the 36-member Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has been not only a market economy, but also a free democracy.

This fact alone should be enough for Beijing to pause for thought. While significant anniversaries mark the passage of time, offering an opportunity to recall past triumphs and honour past losses, such occasions also allow nations to reassess their past and rethink their future.

Just as China’s rapid development over the past four decades proved the success of Deng’s free market reforms, its continued economic success will depend on its willingness to embrace modernity in governance – democracy, freedom and the rule of law.

Doing so would not only accomplish what China calls its “national rejuvenation”, but it would also achieve exactly what the rest of the world is hoping for: a peaceful rise for the Chinese nation. ■

Cary Huang is a veteran China affairs columnist, having written on the topic since the early 1990s