August 18, 2010 2:20 PM EDT
Despite the fact that China has overtaken Japan as the No. 2 economy in the world, the country insists that it still lags far behind its rivals in per capita GDP and is still a "developing country".
"The quality of China's economic growth still needs to be improved, no matter whether it is in terms of people's quality of life or in terms of science, technology and environmental protection," Yao Jian, spokesman of Commerce ministry in China said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, China's foreign ministry also claimed that China was still a developing country, noting the nation's position at "the bottom of the global industrial chain", China News Service reported.
After overtaking Germany in 2007 as the third-largest economy, China surpassed Japan as the second largest economy, the title that Japan held for over 40 years, after Japan on Monday reported its GDP for the second quarter was $1.286 trillion, less than China's $1.335 trillion in the same period.
However, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, China's per capita GDP, which was $6,675 last year, is much less than those of U.S. and Japan, which were $46,436 and $32,443 respectively, data from the world bank shows.
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According to Yao, more than 40 million Chinese people are living below its official poverty line.
"We should care not only about the gross domestic product data but also about per-capita GDP," Yao said.
Western feedback
To economists, the rise of China as the world's second largest economy in nominal terms is almost meaningless, the Financial Times reported on Monday, saying in more economically important purchasing power terms China overtook Japan almost a decade ago.
"But for all non-economists, China's jump to the number-two spot - something that will happen this year if it has not already - is important because it represents a shift in global economic and political power," the report said.
"China's foreign policy has long been to maintain a low profile, but it is now the number-one exporter, the number-two economy and will be the number-one energy consumer by next year," Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Dragonomics research consultancy was cited as saying in the report. "All of these milestones mean China has fewer places to hide.The country is not quite ready for its new role and would like to put it off for as long as it can," Kroeber said.
"I think China is doing a lot to catch up to advanced countries, but you have to recognize that the Chinese government doesn't want radical change in terms of its currency and trade,"Los Angels Times reported on Monday, citing Masamichi Adachi, JPMorgan's senior economist in Tokyo as saying. "They still [want] to be treated like a developing economy. One day they will have to change."
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