Follow GMF
GMF Blog
On Defense, France Bites the Bullet, But Avoids Strategic Insolvency May 7, 2013
Iceland’s Recovery Saga Presents Opportunities for Brussels, Washington—and Beijing May 6, 2013
Which Way Forward for Europe’s Hybrid Regimes? May 2, 2013
The Arab Revolts and the Liberal Order May 2, 2013
Events
GMF celebrates its 40 year history and Founder and Chairman, Dr. Guido Goldman at Gala Dinner May 09, 2013 / Washington, DCGMF held a celebratory gala dinner at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, Wednesday May 8.
In this podcast, GMF Vice President of Programs Ivan Vejvoda discusses last month's historic agreement to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Anchor Elaine Reyes speaks with Andrew Small, Transatlantic Fellow of the Asia Program for the German Marshall Fund, about Beijing's potential role in brokering peace between Israel and Palestine
Asia’s Real Challenge: China’s “Potemkin” Rise
May 07, 2013 / Minxin Pei
The Diplomat
This op-ed was originally published by The Diplomat. Click here to read the complete article.
THE DIPLOMAT --
To be sure, given the Chinese officials’ fondness for fudging numbers, many people both inside and outside China (including Mr. Li Keqiang, the new prime minister) are justifiably skeptical about the credibility of China’s GDP data. In some cases, such skepticism can become so extreme that it leads many to conclude that China’s rise is more likely a statistical fiction, cooked up by the Chinese ruling elites to aggrandize their power and glory.
Vigilant obsession with the accuracy of the Chinese growth data may expose, from time to time, minor acts of fraud. Chinese provincial officials habitually report growth numbers that, when added up, significantly exceeded the total calculated by the Chinese National Statistics Bureau. But such fastidiousness comes at a great cost: we may overlook a problem far bigger than fake GDP data. The real scandal in China’s rise is not its exaggerated speed, but the shockingly low quality of its growth. Low-quality growth has undermined China’s social fabric and individual welfare. It also makes China look far stronger on paper than in reality.
To understand why this is the case, we must ask a different question. Instead of harping on Chinese GDP numbers, we should instead scrutinize the quality of China’s rise. Quibbling whether the Chinese economy has been growing at double-digit or not is uninteresting since one undeniable fact is that whatever measurements of speed we use, the Chinese economy has grown many times larger.
The real issue today is not the size of the Chinese economy and the rate of its growth, but its inner strength and quality.
Read the full article from The Diplomat here.
Minxin Pei is a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States as well as the Tom and Margot Pritzker Professor of Government and director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College.
