Dispatching problem of poverty has made world a much better place

Positive outcomes

Goldin hopes one of the more positive outcomes of the pandemic will be the rejection of nationalism and protectionism and an acceptance that globalization is the only solution to the world's problems.

"Globalization is absolutely essential. Without it there will be no progress in the world, there will be no poverty reduction, there will be no vaccines to stop pandemics, there will be no coordination to stop climate change or antibiotic resistance or other threats we face.

"There will be no sharing of technologies, or investment of market opportunities to help people escape poverty."

Globalization has played a major part in China achieving xiaokang and eliminating extreme poverty, he said.

"China's progress has been absolutely associated with its opening up, and it has been a big beneficiary of globalization, but it's also been a contributor to it.

"China in many senses has sustained the global economy, and it's been the strongest locomotive by far to the global economy since the financial crisis, and probably will be after this one."

With his background in development issues in Africa, Goldin is aware of the extent to which African countries look to China as a role model in the way it has become a moderately prosperous society and tackled poverty.

China has forged strong links with Africa in recent years through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation as well as major investment in and trade with the continent.

"What Africans see in China is a multidimensional strategy to reduce poverty which focuses on industrialization, urbanization, rural development and priority given to child development and education.

"It is this comprehensive strategy that they would like to emulate. The question though has to be whether they have the government capacity and financial capability to achieve what China has achieved."

While China has demonstrated not just to African but other developing countries is that the journey is possible, he said.

"China has shown that an extremely poor country can become an upper-middle income country over a relatively short period of time and with very little external assistance."

Goldin said that although China is about to eliminate extreme poverty, poverty levels are rising in a number of developed countries.

"You see the queues for food banks in the US, where there are now people in dire poverty. You have increased homelessness with people living on the streets.

"Rich countries too don't have adequate social safety nets, and people face extreme hardship. This is a world of rising inequality where a handful of billionaires have the same amount of wealth as half of the world's population."

Goldin rejects any notion that China has become rich on the back of countries such as the US, as some prominent politicians now argue.

"The reality is that the US economy is much stronger and has much higher levels of employment and growth because China is stronger and has higher growth.

"The US, in fact, would not be what it is today if China was still where it was in the late 1970s before it opened up. The idea that somehow China's success has been at the expense of the US is a complete misunderstanding as to how all this works. It is not a zero-sum game."

IAN GOLDIN

Ian Goldin, 65, a former economic adviser to the late South African president Nelson Mandela, is one of the world's foremost development experts.

The Oxford University professor argues that China achieving a moderately prosperous society and eliminating all extreme poverty is one of the great achievements in human history.

A former director of development policy and vice president of the World Bank, he says China has shown that developing countries too can make the journey to greater prosperity. His latest book, Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years, looks at the role China has played in reducing poverty.