Just checking the Chinese economic data (subscription required), and decided to look at the structural changes more or less since the Communist takeover, as shown below.
The interesting thing is that while the size of agriculture diminished significantly throughout the whole period, industry more or less reached its current level at the beginning of the opening period. Most of the growth in the post-liberalization period has been in services, which has gone hand in hand with the urbanization process.
Of course the results are a little bit deceiving. The primary sector is basically agriculture and the secondary contains the bulk of manufacturing, but the tertiary includes some industries too. For the definitions go here. Still interesting result. By the way, by 2013 the tertiary sector is finally bigger than the secondary.
The interesting thing is that while the size of agriculture diminished significantly throughout the whole period, industry more or less reached its current level at the beginning of the opening period. Most of the growth in the post-liberalization period has been in services, which has gone hand in hand with the urbanization process.
Of course the results are a little bit deceiving. The primary sector is basically agriculture and the secondary contains the bulk of manufacturing, but the tertiary includes some industries too. For the definitions go here. Still interesting result. By the way, by 2013 the tertiary sector is finally bigger than the secondary.
I'm increasingly convinced that the "Primary, Secondary, Tertiary" sector breakdown conceals as much as it reveals. Particularly, its tertiary that I have an issue with. In the link provided its defined as "all other industries not included in primary or secondary industry." When "services" include informal sector self-employed street vendors, public services such as education and healthcare, and the FIRE industry, for example, is this really best understood as a single coherent category?
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