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How Do Western and Chinese Development Models Differ? Noted Chinese Economist Weighs In

by Eric Olander
File image of Justin Yifu Lin, former World Bank chief economist and honorary dean of the National School of Development at Peking University. SAUL LOEB / AFP

While China’s financing of Global South infrastructure faces ongoing criticism from the World Bank (see above,) these traditional development institutions are partly to blame for many Global South countries’ inability to boost development. 

This is the viewpoint of Justin Yifu Lin, one of China’s most influential development thinkers and a former chief economist at the World Bank. Lin now heads Peking University’s Institute of New Structural Economics. This joint background makes his insights particularly interesting.

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