British economist hails China's 'astonishingly long period' of rapid growth

Foreign dealers shop at Beijing's Xiushui Street market in the 1990s. During his first trip to China in 1990, Jim O'Neill sensed the potential of commercialism in China, supported by the country's booming street markets. [WANG WENYANG/FOR CHINA DAILY]

A random encounter with a slogan on a giant billboard in a remote village in South China left a big impression on British economist Jim O'Neill nine years ago.

During a business trip in October 2009, O'Neill decided to spend some leisure time enjoying the karst mountains along the Yulong River in Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, with his wife.

"We cycled around some villages and outside one village, we saw this massive billboard, which read 'Success in English, success in life', and this stuck with me for as long as I can remember," he said.

"That made me realize how much China wanted to learn and communicate, and why it was obviously the case that China's rise is good for the United Kingdom."

O'Neill, who was recently appointed chairman of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which is also known as Chatham House, said the lifting of hundreds of millions of people out of poverty with the help of astonishing economic growth is China's biggest achievement in the past 40 years.

"China has had the most astonishingly long period of very high economic growth, something which the world has never seen," he said.

In 1977, China's GDP was $175 billion, just 2 percent of the world's total. Last year, it was $12 trillion－nearly 68 times more－accounting for 15 percent of the world total. In that time it has jumped from 10th position globally to second, behind only the United States.

Recalling his first trip to China in 1990, the former chief economist for Goldman Sachs said Beijing looked very underdeveloped, but still showed signs of commercialism, supported by a substantial number of street markets.

O'Neill has traveled to China more than 30 times since then, each time noting the pace of constant change in the country, with a huge rise in technology use and the service sector in recent years.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the launch of China's reform and opening-up policy, and O'Neill describes the country's economic performance during the past four decades as "powerful, transformational and to some degree inclusive".

"'Powerful' because there are four times as many people in China earning $40,000 a year as there are in the UK," he said. "In terms of 'inclusive', even though inside China, on standard measures, there's been a widening income disparity, on a truly global basis world income differentials have actually narrowed, primarily because there is an incredible Chinese story."

When it comes to "transformational", he explained that not only has China lifted many people out of poverty, but it has also transformed more aspects of the world. "Take the tourism industry for example, the whole global tourist industry is literally being transformed by Chinese tourists," he said.

Tourists from the Chinese mainland made more than 130 million outbound trips last year, spending $115.29 billion in the process, according to the China National Tourism Administration.

O'Neill described an encounter with a Chinese tourist during a hiking trip on top of Switzerland's Schilthorn mountain as memorable and uplifting.

Famous as the location for one of the early James Bond films, the mountain is a big tourist attraction, with many choosing to take the cable car up. An avid hiker, O'Neill chose to walk instead.

"After walking the mountains for hours, I was a bit disheveled and cold given the height of the mountain," he said. "But my spirits were lifted by listening to what seemed like a Chinese lady singing in the most fantastic voice, rather loudly, the famous song The Hills Are Alive from the musical The Sound of Music, and she received a massive round of applause from everyone afterward."

O'Neill said it was indicative of the freedom enjoyed by Chinese people and especially their creativity, adding that it refuted the perception that China has an issue with allowing and encouraging genuine, open imagination.

He attributed China's economic success partly to its Five-Year Plan, which keeps the nation's development aligned with its strategic direction, an idea he said many other countries, particularly developing ones, should copy.

"China had these clear, every five years, repeated priorities about what it wants to achieve ... and by and large, China stuck to that," he said.