[latch]

China hasn't been a 3rd world country for some time. It isn't even close. Sure there are massive pockets of poverty (with 1 billion people, there are massive pockets of everything)...but visit India or parts of Africa if you want to see what 3rd world is.

[cglace]

If we were going by the original definitions of first world, second world third world. China would be a second world country since it was aligned with Russia and not the US.

[billforsternz]

Not really, the Russians and Chinese were both communist but were rivals rather than allies through most of the cold war.

[gaius]

There was no first and second, it's third world as in "third person". NATO, Warsaw Pact, everyone else.

[speleding]

Yes, there was a first and second world, it used to denote then Nato and USSR block respectively, that's how the third world got its name. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World

[greghinch]

I supposed you could call China not a 3rd world, but I've been to China, Nepal, and parts of Africa, and a lot of rural China looks like the poor parts of the other two. How people in poverty live in China is still quite a bit below how the impoverished live in western countries