The answer depends on a combination of steadfast official Chinese pronouncements that hinge on self-identity and how “developing country status” is defined. The truth is that there is growing criticism of the distinction between these two-group-only categories. A more recent classification focuses on grouping countries by region, such as the Global South, which is commonly used as a stand-in for developing and emerging countries. But that too has problems by including some southern countries with high per capita income, such as Chile and Uruguay, and oddly locating India in the Global South, when it is entirely in the Northern Hemisphere. So much for unblemished classification systems. Yet, the two-group-only distinction remains highly popular in common vocabulary, news media, press releases, diplomacy, and foreign affairs circles.
This opinion piece explores the duality of China’s membership in the two-group-only category and highlights powerful international leadership, governance, economic, and environmental reasons that Beijing resolutely clings to “developing country” status when convenient.
PRC’s Long Held View as a Developing Country
Following the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, Deng Xiaoping emerged as China’s most powerful and influential political figure, its so-called paramount leader. Deng is often called the “Architect of Modern China” by carefully setting the stage for the nation’s meteoric economic and geopolitical rise. In 1985 he famously said that “China is both a major country and a minor one.” That statement was five decades before China emerged as the world’s second-largest economy, a global supply chain leader, a manufacturing powerhouse, and owner of the largest standing military in the world. In 1992, at his address to the 14th Party Congress in Beijing, Jiang Zemin, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and former president of China, declared that “China is a developing country.” Some 30 years later, at the 2023 Johannesburg meeting of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), China’s current President Xi Jinping similarly declared that “China has been and will always remain a member of the developing countries.” Two years later at the World Trade Organization, the PRC’s senior delegate Li Yihong summed it up when she said, “China remains a key member of the Global South and will always be a developing country.”
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This year, the PRC’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi reaffirmed that China is a perpetual member of the Global South by declaring that “China’s heart is with the Global South; China’s root is in the Global South.” And this June, in a speech before the UN General Assembly, the PRC’s Premier Li Qiang reassured delegates that “China will always be a developing country.” How does that view square with definitions from some key international institutions?
Key “Developing Country” Definitions
The United Nations (UN)—The UN categorizes nations based on a set of 3 quality-of-life metrics to include life expectancy, education, and per capita income as tabulated in its Human Development Index (HDI). Countries that generally score low or medium on the HDI Index are considered developing nations. The UN classifies China as a “developing country” primarily due to its low per capita income compared to other developed countries.
World Bank (WB): The World Bank ranks countries based on Gross National Income (GNI) per capita into 4 groups: low, lower-middle, upper-middle, or high-income. China, which has seen its per capita GNI rise from $1,010 to $13,400 from 2001 to 2023, is designated, for now, as an upper-middle-income economy, which is typically considered a developing economy. The WB does not strictly use the two-term-only distinction.
World Trade Organization (WTO) – The WTO does not define developing or developed countries but instead defers to member countries to make that call. The designation can be challenged by other members, especially when there are favorable trade provisions made available only to “developing countries.” Such trade benefits include extended transition times for agreement implementation and technical assistance to build trade capacity. China voluntarily self-identifies as a developing country, but after a long and heated outcry, especially from the United States, China agreed in 2025 to forgo any “Special and Differential Treatment” (SDT) benefits available to developing countries but still retains its developing country self-designation.
China Still Clings Strongly to Developing Country Status…. Why?
While a few economic and trade institutions side with developing country status for China, that may be a historical artifact in a decade or less as more “inland” citizens are encouraged to move to richer urban and coastal cities for income growth opportunities. Those left behind in rural areas are still struggling, however. China’s developing country status confers several often underappreciated, yet very powerful, strategic advantages.
Economic Trade
The developing world serves now, and even more so in the future, as a critical market for Chinese surplus manufacturing goods. About 45% of today’s global GDP is generated by Global South countries, and as incomes rise in key African, Asian, and Latin American countries, trade with a friendly China rather than a hostile West can tilt the trade balance. By being seen as a Global South champion, China builds political and economic relationships that can later pave the way to more easily secure Global South-rich natural resources in addition to expanded export markets and investment opportunities.
Political Solidarity and Policy Alignment
By identifying as a developing nation, China burnishes its image as a nation more closely aligned with the goals and aspirations of many Global South nations, especially those who have struggled in the past with colonialism and Western hegemony. This ideological solidarity helps strengthen political and policy linkages between China and the Global South.
New Global Governance Order
China wants to be viewed as a cooperative, non-competitive global South partner and an alternative non-Western model for success. China presents itself as a friend of developing countries existing governments, elites, and powerful interest groups, not a threat. In so doing, it works to undermine Western influence on global governance and challenge Western norms on topics like human rights in key institutions such as the United Nations.
Soften Climate, Social, and Environmental Obligations
Maintaining the developing country label also allows China to avoid certain obligations and restrictions. Particularly with climate and environmental obligations, the label is quite pragmatic for China, helping it avert any associated economic costs associated with this obligation by obtaining favorable financial and technical assistance and longer phase-out times. The Kigali Amendment of the Montreal Protocol and the Paris Climate Agreement are two examples where China has used its developing country status to economically benefit over its Western developed country rivals.
SUMMING UP:
China is unquestionably a great global power in terms of its massive economic, technological, military, and geopolitical influence. By definition, for now, China can call itself a developing country, though many economists say it is on the cusp of being fully developed. On some metrics, like education and life expectancy, for instance, China is advanced, almost on par with the United States. It is a stretch to make the case that China is like most typical poor global South countries with widespread poverty, an economy highly dependent on its extractive industries and on agriculture, and holding a weak global trading position. And yet, China clings unhesitatingly to its developing country status for trade opportunities, to solidify political and policy ties, to promote its own version of economic success and governance, and to limit goals for stringent greenhouse gas emissions.
China employs a dual strategy conveniently claiming developing country status or developed country status to serve its own geopolitical interests. This intentional ambiguity is not a historical accident or foreign policy uncertainty but a deliberate tactical approach. China plays the developing country card to align with the Global South, shielding itself from many global responsibilities, while at the same time flexing its geopolitical muscle as a fully developed superpower on par with the United States.
