Despite China being the world's second-largest economy and home to the most billionaires, China is still categorised as a "developing" country and enjoys the same "special and differential treatment" afforded to nations like Papua New Guinea and Zimbabwe.
Key points:
The WTO does not have a framework to define a 'developed' or 'developing' country
It is entirely up to the "good faith" of individual members to self-allocate themselves
This has led to controversy over China having experienced massive economic growth
Beijing maintains that it sees no reason to give up the self-declared status at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) — or its perks — claiming the preferential treatment is a "fundamental right".
China is the "largest developing country" in the world, even though the Asian superpower has a GDP of $US14.2 trillion — in comparison, Australia's GDP is roughly $US1.5 trillion.
There is increasing pressure growing to remove the benefits of China's developing country status, to make it more a level playing field on exports.
Secondly, more and more car manufacturers are bucking EV vehicles (often responding to public demand) and reducing their EV programmes and introducing more ICE and their derivatives, into their production lines going forward. I see a growing pressure to allow ICE engines to continue post 2035 probably based on green fuels. This may reflect the inability of green energy production to generate sufficient electricity to meet future demand as we reduce reliance on fossil fuels for transport, home heating etc..
I personally cannot see eg EU countries allowing a massive revenue generator and employer like car manufacture to disappear from their economies. Also the Chinese economic bubble will eventually burst, its National Debt is over 3 times its GDP, its housing market close to collapse, its control over precious metals supply lines is being constantly eroded as new deposits of key materials are being discovered outside of it's sphere of influences, reducing reliance on Chinese controlled materials.
In addition the development of non lithium batteries eg cheaper sodium batteries will undermine their competitive edge in EV vehicle production and control over raw material supply chains.
Last edited by JohnHarris; 21/10/24 03:53 PM.
