China’s economy has entered the take-off stage since 1978─the average growth rate of per
capita GDP has been up to 8.1%. Just as Amartya Sen has analyzed: in the past two decades,
China’s economy has been developed very rapidly. The growth of China’s income per capita is
much faster than that of any other region in the world. Nevertheless, people have always failed to
realize that it is rather terrific for such a large country as China to have so rapid growth in per
capita income. It’s totally different from those well-known countries or regions with rapid
economic growth such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Unlike China, who has very large rural
population, Hong Kong and Singapore are actually cities. It is an extraordinary achievement for
such a large country with so great regional differences to obtain such a high average growth rate. 2
Meanwhile, China’s rural poverty population has decreased by a big margin. According to China’s