Exactly. You can't industrialize a country without protection. Just think how USA, Germany, Japan, South Korea accomplished it.
When the IMF and others advice against it, it's because they are not thinking in the welfare of the country in question in the first place.
The other side of the coin is that it's very difficult (or inefficient) to develop a country without access to knowledge and technology from outside, so you need foreign currency.
In order to get foreign currency, you need to sell something or investment from outside that bring what is necessary, but you need a way for the benefits to stay in the country. Navigating this dichotomy is something that the Chinese are doing very well.
Aren't the Chinese essentially just playing on foreign greed for access to their domestic market, in an era of saturation in most of the rest of the world?
They've been dangling the "access" carrot on a stick in front of myopic shareholders and corporate management for 30 years, without ever delivering.
It's great if they want to grow their internal economy. But call a duck a duck: it's done at the expense of freedom for anyone who chooses to engage.
"Aren't the Chinese essentially just playing on foreign greed"
Sure they are.
I'm not an expert but my perception is that China is using two carrots: cheap labour and big markets.
If you are foreign capital, in order to profit you need to create a "mix enterprise" with local capital. The result is that they get the know-how and knowledge and they diminish the chance of relocation to cheaper places.
When they sell their products abroad, they also get foreign currency that allow them to import technology and expertise.
That is very well done.
If you think this is morally wrong (even if every developed country did it), considered the following:
"according to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012"
(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China)
500 million people. That justify a little trickery I think.
Compare that to the morality of people in IMF and other institutions that advice poor countries (in collusion with corrupt local authorities) to open totally their markets.
@RobertoG, do you have some book to recommend about what you said "You can't industrialize a country without protection."
I don't like the protecting laws of my country, avoiding cheaper and better products coming here. I would like to understand more about this, I hope I am wrong disliking this.
When the IMF and others advice against it, it's because they are not thinking in the welfare of the country in question in the first place.
The other side of the coin is that it's very difficult (or inefficient) to develop a country without access to knowledge and technology from outside, so you need foreign currency.
In order to get foreign currency, you need to sell something or investment from outside that bring what is necessary, but you need a way for the benefits to stay in the country. Navigating this dichotomy is something that the Chinese are doing very well.