Editor's note: John Ross is a former Director of Economic and Business Policy for the Mayor of London. The video reflects the interviewee's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.
China's rise has been entirely peaceful and has been based upon its cooperation with other countries. China has shown the possibility of a rapid economic development without exploiting other countries, without wars and through peaceful development.
This is absolutely vital because even when China becomes a high-income economy, which by World Bank standards will occur in about two to three years' time – depends just a little bit exactly on the exchange rate – nevertheless, this means that two thirds of the world will still be developing economies, so we will still have to take two thirds of humanity out of development status into a situation in which they would have the advantage of high-income economies.
China is absolutely crucial in this for two reasons. Firstly, because it's by far the biggest of the developing economies, therefore, it's a locomotive, not only for the world economy as a whole, but in particular, for the Global South countries.
Secondly, because of the lessons of its successful development, its huge investments in research and development (R&D), its investments in infrastructure, its leading role in new industries, new quality productive forces, as they are known, are what these other countries want to achieve.
China is now, we may say, one of the most developed of the developing countries. It is relatively soon going to make the transition to a high-income economy, and it, therefore, shows the path which the rest of the Global South and developing countries need to follow. Therefore, it is both a material and – you might say – theoretical inspiration for what they are doing.
The world is entering in one of the greatest transitions in its history. Let's say green energy, this is the biggest transition in the world economy, since at least, obviously, the beginning of the 20th century, when the traditional source of world energy coal was replaced by electricity and by oil, whereas we're going to have something completely different, which is renewable energy. China is absolutely at the core of this, because it has become the world's leader in the production of green energy. That also means that China's economy is going to be integrated with other economies in a different way.
(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on X, formerly Twitter, to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)