“Well, “official” China numbers aren’t worth squat.”
I don’t know. The cities and infrastructure they built in the past 30 years is nothing to sneeze at. 30 years ago, the country looked like Bangladesh, today half the country looks like Zurich (i.e., much better than any American city).
Having said that, they do have problems - starting with pollution (much of it due to us exporting our industrial base to them, by the way), and obviously they’re not free to elect leaders who hate their own country.
The stole trillions in intellectual property rights to do it.
They relied heavily on the World Bank to get their industrial, banking, and finantial structures sort of right.
It has been a brilliant rise, using the tools of Western Civilization.