There's a subtle point here that 99,999% of Western commentariat is missing. Like, totally blind to. And that point is: Building a huuuuuuuuuuge dam (or steel plant, or whatever) has been EVERYONE's plan of development. Like absolutely every developing country, no exceptions

Almost everyone who tried to develop did it in a USSR-ish way, via prestige projects. Build a dam. A steel plant. A huge plant. And then an even bigger one And then you run out of money, and it all goes bust and all you have is postapocalyptic ruins for the kids to play in

If China did not go bust, in a way like almost every development project from the USSR to South Asia did, that probably means that you guys are wrong about China. Like totally wrong What you describe is not China but the USSR, and its copies & emulations elsewhere

What defined the success of China was not a Big State Plan (the USSR had Big Plan, Brazil had, everyone had) but an ecosystem of small, independent sweatshops producing consumer goods. You should not imagine a big plant, you should imagine something Pakistani style

Dirty, smelly, noisy, dangerous, and - of course - straight out illegal. Like, one big economic crime all around And in one region of China, in the far south, that internal Pakistan of small scale illegal industry got connected to the global market, and scaled up That's it

So, basically, the recipe of the miracle is: 1. Internal Pakistan of small industry. Dirt, smell, noise & chaos. Also non existence of law and non-enforcement of regulations 2. Connection to the global market + deep water seaport 3. Foreign expertise You must have all three

Why you cannot do it with big industry Because you need Darwinian selection? If a small sweatshop goes bust, it goes bust. It has no one's ear, it has no influence, and no lobby. It, therefore, is non-BS, and must optimise its way through Large industry, is a different story