Why a Middle Income Country is Experiencing a Booming Auto Industrial Development: Evidence from China and its Meaning for the Developing World

Abstract

From almost nothing in 1970 to the World largest manufacturer and automobile market in 2013, China has essentially focused its rapid economic progress on industrial development. This paper discusses the meaning of middle income to the developing world. It then determines the factors contributing to the growth of China auto industry. It also argues on how the fast growing of a middle income country's auto industry could impact other developing economies. It therefore concludes that although the economic model established by China to develop its auto industry traces its basis in the diamond model's determinants, the application of these determinants has followed a different approach backed up by a pentagram model which places the government as the primary actor in the fast transformation of China auto industry.