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China’s Road and Its Illuminations Toward Developing Countries

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Abstract

In the past 40 years since China’s adoption of its reform and opening-up policy, Chinese society has witnessed profound and dramatic changes on both the material and spiritual level and, in contrast to when the People’s Republic of China was founded, it has exerted an unprecedented global impact on the world. However, it must be acknowledged that China has still followed a dependent development path in the past 40 years, though featuring the least dependency and the greatest autonomy among all the developing countries that have taken a similar approach. China’s development experience not only is significant for the enhancement and development of the underdevelopment theory but also serves as a role model for those developing countries that wish to free themselves from dependency in their own development. The theoretical significance of China’s development for the underdevelopment theory is that it acknowledges the possibility that the capitalist world economy can provide developing countries with certain opportunities for development, and emphasizes the necessity for developing countries to transform their inappropriate systems and formulate suitable development strategies in order to seize opportunities for development. What developing countries can learn from China’s development is that export-oriented development is the only way for them to realize modernization. However, they should also be reminded to embrace an organic and progressive opening-up rather than pursuing an irrational and uncontrolled integration into the world economy. The government, as an extremely important player in this process, should be strong enough to provide a stable political environment and a sustainable nationalist development strategy because these are essential to attracting foreign capital and to reforming the domestic economy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 1, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 768.

  2. 2.

    Ibid., p. 771.

  3. 3.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 100.

  4. 4.

    Paul Baran, The Political Economy of Growth, Cai Zhongxing and Yang Yuguang, trans., Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2000, p. 96.

  5. 5.

    Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “Associated-Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications,” in Alfred Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil, Origins, Policies, and Future, Yale University Press, 1973, pp. 144–152.

  6. 6.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 1, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 773.

  7. 7.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 100.

  8. 8.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 101.

  9. 9.

    Theotonio Dos Santos, Imperialism and Dependence, Yang Yanyong et al., trans., Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 1999, pp. 460–488.

  10. 10.

    Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “Associated-Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications,” in Alfred Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil, Origins, Policies, and Future, Yale University Press, 1973, pp. 144–152.

  11. 11.

    Peter Evans, Dependent Development, The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil, Princeton University Press, 1979.

  12. 12.

    Stephen Hymer, A pioneer in transnational production research with a Marxist tendency, has made a good analysis of the United States’ promotion of overseas expansion of transnational corporations and their causes, see Stephen Hymer, “The Multinational Corporation and the Law of Uneven Development,” in Jagdish Bhagwati, ed., Economics and World Order, New York: Macmillan, 1974, pp. 113–135.

  13. 13.

    For related description, see Jeffry A. Frieden, Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century, Yang Yuguang et al., trans., Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2009, pp. 383–386.

  14. 14.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 1, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 255.

  15. 15.

    Dudley Seers, ed., Dependency Theory, London: Frances Printer, Ltd., 1981, pp. 29–50.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., Authoritarian Brazil, Origins, Policies, and Future, p. 149.

  17. 17.

    Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, Harvard University Press, 2000, p. 284.

  18. 18.

    Although some development economists believe that such theories as the ‘dependency theory’ are outdated, in recent years some left-wing scholars in Western academic circles still use the ‘dependency theory’ to analyze developing countries’ falling victims to the world market and explain there are so many difficulties in development, even if a country joins the world market, from multiple perspectives. For related thesis, see Kema Irgbe, “Globalization and the Development of Underdevelopment of the Third World,” Journal of Third World Studies, Spring 2005, pp. 41–67.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., Robert Cox, Production, Power, and World Order, p. 5.

  20. 20.

    Marx/Engels Collected Works, Vol. 2, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 521.

  21. 21.

    Giovanni Arrighi has analyzed the unique factors about China’s development in the past 40 years. See Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing, Lu Aiguo et al., trans., Beijing: Social Sciences Press, 2009, chapter 12.

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Bin, L. (2020). China’s Road and Its Illuminations Toward Developing Countries. In: Men, H. (eds) On China's Road. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7880-5_9

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