China: Searching for a New Development Modal

The high growth in over the past three decades has lifted China into the ranks of the high middle income countries. However, China’s path to becoming high income country is still rife with many new challenges in economic, social and environment fronts. Many factors that supported past high growth, such as exports, and abundant labor and capital supply will begin to exert an opposite effect, slowing growth. And China’s growth is increasingly constrained by rising social and environmental tensions. Faced with new challenges, China needs to search for new approaches to development. The key components of the new approach may include: coordinated social and economic development strategies, an innovation-centered industrial restructuring strategy, a consumption-centered domestic demand-boosting strategy, a migrant worker-centered urbanization strategy, a resource-aware and environmentally sustainable strategy, and a balance- centered external economic strategy. To turn to begin this new approach to development, China needs to push further reform in key areas.