Africa -China Review Africa -China Cooperation and Transformation
Published: September 29,2024
By Michele Geraci
China has been a unique example in the history of economic development of mankind. It has been really the most successful with 800 million people have been lifted out of extreme poverty, the development of infrastructure, high-speed rail, technology to the most recent advancement in artificial intelligence, 5G, semiconductor, and other types of high tech.
One of the key successes of China lies in its market-state balance. China manages very well to let the market forces develop when that is conducive to growth. But then, when there are problems of crisis, China’s state intervention becomes stronger and therefore manages to ring-fence problems.
This idea of socialism with Chinese characteristics, in my view, is the perfect institutional framework for the situation that we have in China. It may not work in other countries, but in China is, I think, as good as it can get.
Some people have been predicting the collapse of China. There is a famous book – The Coming Collapse of China. This collapse has not happened yet. And I’m actually very confident that it will never happen because China has a mix of skills at government-level institutions that could answer to the challenges in a very effective way.
The Chinese economy has many challenges but also has many solutions. This is I think what some Western analysts don’t understand. They only see half of the story, the challenges, which are there, but they do not see that China has also the solution. That’s why we have seen that China sailed through the global financial crisis really with no problems.
I am a supporter of China’s development because that benefits also my country, Italy, and it benefits the world as such.
So China, for me, is an example, a benchmark that I want to use in my country. Of course I cannot copy the model because it would not fit, but I can take some learning points.
While Italy is a developed country, so there is some inertia from the past, but in developing and growing economies, it could be very useful.
For example, development based on the pillar of infrastructure, transport, migration from rural to urban areas. That’s exactly what China has done over the last 30 years. That could be a very successful model if applied to some of those African countries. They do need the infrastructure, and they do need the development of urbanization and also manufacturing.
So in that case, the Chinese model with local characteristics can be used in any of those Asian and African countries.
Michele Geraci was the former undersecretary of state of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development.
