Opinion | China is still a developing country despite what US leaders might say

The question of whether China is still a developing country has attracted international attention in recent years. Needless to say, becoming a developed country is the aspiration of many Chinese people. However, China is still a developing country.

A decade ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech addressed to the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, during which he summarised five of China’s significant characteristics: it is a country with a long history of civilisation, it has experienced deep suffering in the past, it adopts socialism with Chinese characteristics, it is the largest developing country in the world, and it is a country undergoing profound changes.

At the 2022 High-Level Dialogue on Global Development, Xi said China has always been a member of the big family of developing countries.

However, the United States does not want to recognise China’s status as a developing country. In 2019, the Trump administration published a memo on developing-country status in the World Trade Organization (WTO). “Since joining the WTO in 2001, China has continued to insist that it is a developing country and thus has the right to avail itself of flexibilities under any new WTO rules,” the memo said. “The United States has never accepted China’s claim to developing-country status, and virtually every current economic indicator belies China’s claim.”

In 2022, the US Senate voted unanimously in favour of an amendment conditioning the Senate’s ratification of updates to the Montreal Protocol, known as the Kigali Amendment, on taking action to remove China’s designation as a developing nation.

In March 2023, the US House of Representatives passed the PRC Is Not a Developing Country Act, which would require the Department of State to take action to stop China from being classified as a developing country by international organisations. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a similar bill a few months later.