Developing country status

Compared with developed countries, China is still in the middle stage of modernization and has yet to catch up

Despite its overtaking Japan in second quarter economic output, the basic fact that China is still in the primary stage of socialism determines that the country will still be a developing nation for a long period in the future.

It is an indisputable fact that China ranks among the world's middle and low-income countries in terms of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). Based on gross national income per capita basis, the World Bank classifies countries into four categories: low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income economies, with the first three classified as developing nations.