Thread by @AaronBastani

Xi Jinping recently claimed China had ended extreme poverty. On a meaningful measure it hasn't, but since 1990 its taken around 900 million out of $5 a day or less - a huge achievement.

All while ignoring the Washington Consensus. Me for @novaramedia

novaramedia.com/2021/05/25/did…

If we adopt $5 a day as measure for extreme poverty that would require global GDP to increase *175 times* to end it. In other words, using this benchmark, it's impossible to eradicate extreme poverty with our present economic model.

That's the context for China's achievement.

Achieving the millennium development goal of halving global poverty from 1990-2015 (measured on $1.25 a day) came to depend *entirely* on China. Success there masked worsening situation elsewhere in global south.

The 'good news' story of international development isn't true.

It is ironic that myth of global progress, so central to liberal view of history, has come to depend on a country whose economic model is entirely different to our own.

Take China out and extreme poverty, measured in absolute numbers, has increased almost a billion since 1990.