by Peng Delei
BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The United States' attempts to change China's developing country status clearly reveal its anxiety over China's development and its use of every available means to contain China and maintain its hegemony.
An act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives opposes the labeling or treatment of China as a developing country in any treaty or other international agreement to which the United States is a party.
In fact, China has sufficient factual basis to support its status as a developing country.
China's per capita GDP in 2022 was 12,741 U.S. dollars, or just one-fifth of that of advanced economies and only one-sixth of that of the United States. In the Human Development Report 2022 released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), China's Human Development Index (HDI) ranked 79th in the world in 2021, which is similar to other major developing countries.
China's status as a developing country is also recognized by World Trade Organization (WTO) mechanisms and international agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
There are no WTO definitions of "developed" and "developing" countries. Members make their own decisions on whether to announce for themselves as "developed" or "developing" countries. Therefore, no individual member has the right to reclassify other members at will.
China has never used the status as a shield to avoid international obligations or a stepping stone to special privileges. Instead, the country has been vigorously devoted to world peace and development.
From 2013 to 2021, China has contributed about 38.6 percent of global economic growth annually on average, higher than that of all G7 countries combined. China has eliminated absolute poverty and accounted for more than 70 percent of global poverty reduction. China has also become the second-largest contributor to the UN's regular budget and peacekeeping assessments.
Despite the remarkable achievements China has made in the past decades, the country faces imbalances and inadequacies on development, and its capacity for scientific and technological innovation is not yet strong enough.
The United States' questioning of China's status as a developing country is mainly aimed at ensuring its own dominance in the economic, trade, science and financial fields, sowing discord between China and other developing countries, and stalling the momentum of the collective rise of developing countries.
As the Chinese Foreign Ministry has stated, the country will firmly defend its developing country status, deepen solidarity and cooperation with other developing countries, work for greater representation and a stronger say for developing countries in the international governance system, and defend the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of developing countries.
Editor's note: Peng Delei is a professor of the School of Law at East China University of Science and Technology in Shanghai. ■
