How China Did It - Future Leaders of Ghana

How China Did It

As recent as the 1980s, China was just a third world country struggling to develop the right economy just as we are doing today. But today, China has the second largest economy in the world just after the United States. If someone had made this prophesy even ten years ago, it would have sounded far fetched or absurd. So what did China’s leaders do to attain such an economic miracle that has pitched it directly against the United States for the position of the world’s superpower in just two centuries.
To understand where it all began, we have to move back in December 1978 when China embarked on a policy known as "Four Modernizations". In this policy, the country specified exactly four sectors of the economy that was given topmost priority. They were: Agriculture, Industry, Science and Technology and National Defense. Under this Policy, the country devised measures that stressed economic self-reliance in these four industries. To achieve this, they had a clearly defined method by which to achieve the economic self reliance they wanted. Some of the methods included:
1. They promoted an export led growth where the country boosted its production by importing machinery from Japan and the west and exporting non-high value finished products like kids toys, socks, shirt buttons and cheap electronics.
2. The government went on an expensive educational campaign that focused on an educational system that met the demands of current technology. It even included propaganda campaigns that made people imagine the future of a beautiful city by posting such Posters in public Ares. Today, China produces the more graduates than any other nation on earth. Another propaganda was the promoting of intellectuals as the foundation of a modern society. Instead of the rich, intellectuals rather became the role models of the society, further encouraging people to study. The use of such campaigns reflect how the government made a concerted effort to embed into the minds of the people the importance of education even if it was done through propaganda.
In all this, the government had specific targets with defined timeframes set against them to be able to measure success or failure. The government set up a Ten year plan of specific targets they needed to achieve with regard to production in order to be able to reach economic self reliance in those materials.  As of 1977, China was still a predominantly agricultural economy. The government therefore went on an agricultural mechanization and Irrigational improvements program that cost over USD 33billion.  Although capital was scarce for China at the beginning of the Ten year plan just as it is for Ghana now, the government devised strategies to meet their demand. One of the methods was to buy agricultural products from the people at low prices and sell them to the international market at higher prices, a strategy that we can easily replicate given that our internal currency has a different rate than that on the international market.  The country also sought revenue by expanding its tourism industry to attract more revenue for the state.
Basically, China started on its road to becoming a superpower not by using complex strategies and policies but by being realistic and setting achievable targets that they knew would definitely expand the economy and produce the prosperity they enjoy today.
We also can if we start.

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