Developing countries SHOULD develop more quickly than the first wave of industrialization. Instead of blundering through a variety of worse-than-modern technologies they should jump directly to current tech; instead of discovering how to build a power infrastructure they should learn from the leaders, etc. The closer they get to "caught up" the more they can contribute to advancing the wave of human progress, and the more they will also slow down.
If China's GDP increase was on par with the US's, something would be very wrong with China. (Developing countries that aren't increasing their GDP or even see it decrease typically do have something very wrong with them.)
(A lot of people seem to make this basic mistake. A developing economy has a lot of low-hanging fruit, long-gone in an industrialized country. If we could suddenly open a portal to 2050, we'd have low-hanging fruit in our economy too... but we'll have to get to 2050 the long, slow way.)
If China's GDP increase was on par with the US's, something would be very wrong with China. (Developing countries that aren't increasing their GDP or even see it decrease typically do have something very wrong with them.)
(A lot of people seem to make this basic mistake. A developing economy has a lot of low-hanging fruit, long-gone in an industrialized country. If we could suddenly open a portal to 2050, we'd have low-hanging fruit in our economy too... but we'll have to get to 2050 the long, slow way.)