The ‘China model’ is not a model for Pakistan to replicate

https://arab.news/cuwzv

Recently, one increasingly hears in policy circles in Islamabad that Pakistan is emulating the “China model.” The ambition is admirable, but slogans are poor substitutes for understanding. If Pakistan wishes to emulate China’s success, it must first reckon with what China actually did, and did not do.

Consider the scale of China’s achievement. In 1990, according to the World Bank, nearly two-thirds of China’s population lived in extreme poverty. By 2022, that figure had fallen to effectively zero by international poverty standards. No country in history has lifted so many people, more than 800 million, out of extreme deprivation in so short a time. This was not a statistical sleight of hand. It was a social transformation visible in longer life expectancy, improved education, rapid urbanization and the expansion of a substantial middle class.

The economic ascent is equally striking. In 1990, China’s GDP was smaller than Italy’s. Today it is the world’s second-largest economy, having overtaken Japan in 2010. Per capita income has risen 40-fold, from roughly $300 in 1990 to over $12,000 in current dollars. Chinese universities now feature prominently in global rankings, and the country produces more STEM graduates annually than the United States and Europe combined. Its firms dominate manufacturing supply chains and are increasingly competitive in advanced technologies.

This is, by any reasonable standard, remarkable governance.

If one seeks a contemporary example of........

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