Commentary
The U.S. House of Representatives has unanimously voted to strip China of its status as a “developing country.” Even if the Senate and President Joe Biden were to go along, Washington would have no power to force the issue.
That lies with the international community and, to some extent, China. Beijing will not likely make the change. Still, a stand on the matter from the United States does make matters awkward for Beijing.
Decades ago, when communist China first opened to the world and even in 1999, when it finally joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), there could be no doubt that it had an underdeveloped economy. The huge nation in 1990 had a gross national income (GNI) of about $374 billion, less than 1.7 percent of the global GNI. The nation’s imports and exports equaled barely 1.0 percent of global totals, as did the amounts of direct investment into and out of the country. There was every reason to treat it as a developing economy….