Will China emerge as a high-income country still ruled by a communist party state? If China were to achieve this, it would transform a world in which all large, high-income countries are currently democratic. It would reshape the global balance of power, not just economically and militarily, but also politically and ideologically. This is what President Xi Jinping expects to happen. But how likely is it, in fact?
Today, China is not quite exceptional. True, the number of countries ruled by a party that calls itself communist is far smaller than it was before 1991. Yet there remain a few others, notably Vietnam. True, too, it has achieved four decades of staggering economic growth. Yet it is still a middle-income country, ranked by the IMF at 75th in the world, in gross domestic product per head at purchasing power parity — a little behind Mexico and Thailand.
In terms of quality of governance, too, it is not extraordinary, at least on standard World Bank indicators. As one would expect, it ranks far higher for “government effectiveness”, on which it is ranked close to Italy, than for “voice and accountability”, on which it is below Russia. But it is not really exceptional among middle-income countries. If, however, it were to become a high-income country, with GDP per head at, say, the level of South Korea but with government accountability where it is today, something quite new would have emerged. After all, even Singapore’s “voice and accountability” is ranked far higher than China’s.