Yet, despite talk of a rising Asia, only a handful of East Asian economies have moved from low- to high-income status during the past several decades. Moreover, between 1950 and 2008, only 28 economies in the world – and only 12 non-Western economies – were able to narrow their per capita income gap with the United States by ten percentage points or more.
然而,尽管是在谈论亚洲的崛起,但是在过去几十年中只有少数的东亚经济体实现了从低收入到高收入的转变。此外，从1950年到2008年，世界上只有28个经济体能够以十个百分点或者更快的速度缩小与美国的人均收入差距，其中只有12个非西方经济体。与此同时,150多个国家被困在低收入或中等收入的状态中。缩小与高收入工业化国家的差距仍是世界发展面临的主要挑战。