Do You Rejoice For China?

Hereby is an op-ed piece I wrote for the Star Tribune, published on Sunday, December 10.

“China’s rise: The wealth of a nation (not ours) “China’s rise: The wealth of a nation (not ours) By Timothy Taylor”

When the economic histories of our time are written, 30 or 50 or 100 years from now, I strongly suspect that the main topic of discussion will not be U.S. budget deficits and taxes, nor health insurance, nor the struggles of the European Union with the euro, and perhaps not even “globalization” writ broadly.

Instead, history will see our era defined by the extraordinary economic rise of China.

Although this rise has been happening right in front of our eyes for almost 40 years, it has changed the lives of more than a billion people in ways that are not fully appreciated. Here are a few measures of how life in China changed between about 1980 and the present, according to World Bank data:

The share of China’s population below the poverty line, modestly defined as having a consumption level of $3.10 per capita per day, has fallen from 99 percent of the population to 11 percent.

Per capita GDP has risen from $200 per person to $8,200 per person.

Life expectancy has risen from 66 years to 76 years.

Infant mortality per 1,000 live births has fallen from 48 to 9.

The literacy rate for those 15 and older has risen from 66 percent to 96 percent.

The share of China’s total population over age 25 who have completed a secondary-level (high school) education has risen from 6 percent to 22 percent.

Such a list could be extended, of course. But the bottom line is that more than a billion people in China have risen out of a combination of grinding poverty, poor health and low levels of education to what the World Bank classifies as “upper middle income.” A Chinese person who was a young adult back in 1980 has observed the entire process in his or her own lifetime — and hasn’t yet reached retirement age.

So, do you rejoice for China? Adam Smith, who launched the systematic study of economics in 1776 with “The Wealth of Nations,” published an earlier time in 1759 called “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” which includes a meditation on how most people in the West think about the welfare of people in faraway China. Smith wrote: