I disagree. I think the exact opposite. I feel we won't succeed until we have a completely bespoke plan. We are a different nation with a different identity, a different set of problems, different social structures and we live in a different era.
We've had enough of square pegs for round holes.. I'm not suggesting some obscure abstract peg, rather one that fits our specific hole.
A few examples of what I mean:
We don't an identity challenge that the Chinese and Turks didn't have. They had the legacy of empires to bind them together, whereas our nation is more multicultural than that. We can't rely heavily on highly nationalist politics alone.
Another example, both those nations had the discipline of empire to fall back on. It provides an in built belief as well as societal constructs which could be repurposed. We don't have that.
The Chinese refer to thier period under colonialism as the century of shame. That motivated them to success. Our country is trying to own that shame and hide it instead. We remained part of the commonwealth, we adopted our colonisers ways, we've sent large communities to settle in those countries, we still look up to them, we even have laymen talking about the great British contributions... lol How can such a nation adopt the Chinese model?
I am sure there are ideas from within thier experiences we can use, like how Chinese addressed thier literacy rate in the 1949 education revolution, however wholesale copy and paste won't work.
The Ottomans missed the boat on the industrial revolution. They tried to march west with thier empire instead of into Asia and Africa. After that they were playing catch up and never managed to see success. Wearing trousers and replacing turbans with the Fez didn't make up for that shortcoming. Copy paste didn't save them, they had to reinvent thier nation.
We need to make our own hybrid.
In my opinion our focus should be looking to the future. We need to focus on literacy (especially adult education) and hi tech industries, with a particular focus on green technology. We need to contain the older generations and focus on empowering and unleashing the youth.
