[Zhang Fei]

Hmmm. Perhaps the wholesale offshoring of entire industries from the United States, and massive theft of intellectual property, and the use of sweatshops to a degree which would have made the robber barons of Industrial Revolution England blush, and industrial pollution on a scale never before seen in the history of the planet, had nothing to do with China's growth.

So why isn't Africa, which is closer to Europe and the US, the factory to the world? Why does Jamaica, where piracy is rampant have a lower (~$5K) GDP per capita than China (~$7K) despite being right next to the biggest single market in the world? Why aren't India (~$1.5K) and Pakistan (~$1.3K), which have similar conditions and are half the distance to Europe by water transport, advancing at the same rate? Note that these are countries that did not go through anywhere the same amount of consecutive turmoil (civil war, foreign invasion, civil war, Marxist economic policies) from 1911 to 1979, and yet have 1/4 or less of China's per capita industrial output.

[Cronos]

Why? Because China has:

1. An authoritarian government that can crush people who want to care about the environment or culture or their heritage (India doesn't have that advantage)
2. A huge population with a large low-income base (India has but Jamaica doesn't have it)
3. a mono-ethnic population (90% Han) -- India doesn't have it as it is much more diverse