What kind of country is considered a developed country?
For most people, the answer is simple and crude: a developed country is rich and a developing country is poor.
But there is no standardized way to measure whether a country is a developed country, and the United Nations does not have a comprehensive system for certifying which countries or regions are developed or developing. Generally speaking, however, developed countries generally have high human development indices, high per capita gross national product, high levels of industrialization and high standards of living.
According to the IMF and many international research organizations, the following three "criteria" must be met in order to reach the level of a developed country.
1, the first is the per capita GDP of 20,000 U.S. dollars, China's current per capita GDP is only 12,700 U.S. dollars.
2, a high degree of industrialization, socio-economic development.
3. A well-developed social welfare system and a high quality of life standard for the population.
It's really nice to be a developed country, which means higher incomes, better welfare, and a more relaxed environment. But by any standard, China has yet to reach that level.
Currently there are about 32 globally recognized developed countries, and judging from the per capita GDP of these developed countries, most of the developed countries have a per capita GDP of more than 30,000 US dollars. Even Poland and Hungary, which have the lowest GDP per capita, have a GDP per capita of more than 18,000 dollars.
But the gap between China's per capita GDP and that of the developed countries is relatively large. In 2022, China's total GDP will be 121 trillion yuan, which is about 180,000 U.S. dollars according to the average exchange rate of the whole year, and its per capita GDP will only be about 127,000 U.S. dollars according to a population of 1.412 billion. There is currently a gap of at least $5,000 between China's per capita GDP and the lowest level of developed countries, and the gap is even more pronounced when compared to the average $50,000 GDP of developed countries.
From this, we can see that although China's total GDP is very large, because of China's large population, the per capita GDP is relatively low, and it is simply not able to meet the standards of developed countries.
In coming to the World Bank standards.
The World Bank doesn't use the names developed and developing countries to measure, but rather uses the terms "high-income countries," "middle-income countries," and "low-income countries. ".
According to the World Bank's latest World Income Classification Criteria published in July 2022:Low-income countries are those with a GNI per capita of less than 1,085 U.S. dollars, lower middle-income are those with a per capita GNI (Gross National Income) per inhabitant of between 1,086 U.S. dollars and 4,255 U.S. dollars, upper-middle-income levels are those with a per capita GNI per inhabitant of between 4,256 and 13,205 The upper middle income level is the GNI per capita between 4256 USD and 13205 USD, while the high income countries have a GNI per capita of more than 13205 USD.
The GNI here refers to gross national income, which is different from what we usually call GDP, and it refers to the total amount of raw income such as laborers' compensation, production taxes, subsidies, depreciation of fixed assets, operating surpluses, and property incomes received by all permanent resident units of a country during a certain period of time.
The relationship between the two is: GNI = GDP + factor income from abroad - factor income paid abroad.
China's per capita GNI in 2022 will have just crossed $12,000, not reaching the high-income national standard set by the World Bank.
While some parts of the country have already met the standard, there is still a way to go to become a fully developed country. China has just finished lifting itself out of poverty as a whole, and there are still hundreds of millions of people earning less than 1,000 yuan a month. China is in the primary stage of socialism and will be for a long time, China is still a developing country, China does not want to compete for the name of "developed country".