You know, I haven't really looked into the middle income trap thing; I always thought it was a long term problem that China would overcome sometime maybe in the 2030's. I didn't put much stock into it though because obviously Chinese people live in the most modern cities in the world while some countries with "high income" live in broken old dumps in comparison. But
@magmunta 's very very stupid post about how hard it would be for China to break out of the middle income trap made me do some research and realize that China's basically months away from doing it if it hasn't been done already! China is the highest country in terms of GNI per capita on the middle-high income list.
According to this, Palau has a GNI per capita of $14,070 and China is right below it at $13,660 (2024 data) and in between them is the line that separates mid-high to high at $13,935! And China's per capita GNI was $13,390 in 2023, $12,860 in 2022, $11,950 in 2021 and $10,520 in 2020.
So that basically means that China will have broken out of the middle income trap either already, just pending 2025 data release, or in 2026 at the latest!
And also, that list really does show that GNI per capita doesn't mean anything at all. Palau is above China... People wear grass underwear over there and fish for a living if they're not serving tourists at a resort.
