China Projected to Sustain 5-6% Growth Through 2035 Driven by Tech Innovation
Beijing, Monday, 12 January 2026.
Leveraging a “latecomer advantage” and over 6 million annual STEM graduates, China is positioned to sustain 5-6% economic expansion through 2035, defying global headwinds.
Fundamentals of the Latecomer Advantage
According to Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, the fundamentals underpinning China’s economic trajectory remain robust despite external pressures. Lin, a former chief economist at the World Bank, argues that the country’s development potential is best understood through the lens of the “latecomer advantage” [1]. This economic theory posits that while developed nations must invent new technologies to grow—operating at the costly and risky technological frontier—developing economies can achieve rapid modernization by absorbing and upgrading existing technologies [1]. Lin asserts that this catch-up mechanism allows for faster innovation rates compared to advanced economies, a dynamic he believes will sustain an average annual growth rate of 5 to 6 percent through 2035 [1].
Capitalizing on the Fourth Industrial Revolution
A critical component of this forecast is China’s massive investment in human capital, particularly within the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The nation currently produces over 6 million STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) graduates annually, a figure that exceeds the combined total of the G7 nations [1]. Lin emphasizes that the emerging digital economy, characterized by artificial intelligence and big data, favors economies with rich human capital due to shorter research and development cycles [1]. This demographic dividend in technical expertise is expected to serve as a decisive factor in overcoming the “technological choking” currently attempted by the United States, with Lin projecting that bottlenecks caused by restrictions can generally be overcome within three to five years [1].
Strategic Horizons: Green Transition and 2049 Goals
Beyond 2035, the growth trajectory is expected to moderate as the economy matures. Lin forecasts a shift to an average growth rate of approximately 3 to 4 percent between 2036 and 2049 [1]. This long-term expansion is being structured to align with rigorous environmental standards. The 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), currently in focus, explicitly calls for accelerating the green transition and embedding these principles into industrialization and urbanization [2]. This strategy aims to decouple economic growth from carbon emissions, positioning green development as a defining feature of Chinese modernization and a driver for global cooperation in renewables [2].