You mean some sort of great leap forward produces negative results for your citizens until it's completed? I swear I heard a story similar to that in reality.
The thing is relative to most developing nations China has had very slow economic growth. Yes, with a massive population, but China ranks 110 by purchasing power per person. It's economy is terrible, the only thing it has going for it is scale. And it's not like it has a massive population density either ranking at #80 world wide.
USA in 1980 was already a developed nation with a high relative standard of living. It could only grow GDP by inventing new technology and process not simply import proven tech.
China's continued failures are massive and ongoing. Some numbers look ok relative to their past failures but that's about it.
