9. China’s Road and Its Illuminations Toward Developing Countries

In the past 40 years since China’s adoption of its reform and opening-up policy, Chinese society has witnessed profound and dramatic changes on both the material and spiritual level and, in contrast to when the People’s Republic of China was founded, it has exerted an unprecedented global impact on the world. However, it must be acknowledged that China has still followed a dependent development path in the past 40 years, though featuring the least dependency and the greatest autonomy among all the developing countries that have taken a similar approach. China’s development experience not only is significant for the enhancement and development of the underdevelopment theory but also serves as a role model for those developing countries that wish to free themselves from dependency in their own development. The theoretical significance of China’s development for the underdevelopment theory is that it acknowledges the possibility that the capitalist world economy can provide developing countries with certain opportunities for development, and emphasizes the necessity for developing countries to transform their inappropriate systems and formulate suitable development strategies in order to seize opportunities for development. What developing countries can learn from China’s development is that export-oriented development is the only way for them to realize modernization. However, they should also be reminded to embrace an organic and progressive opening-up rather than pursuing an irrational and uncontrolled integration into the world economy. The government, as an extremely important player in this process, should be strong enough to provide a stable political environment and a sustainable nationalist development strategy because these are essential to attracting foreign capital and to reforming the domestic economy.