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Growth is irrelevant unless you're a net-contributor. The EU really doesn't need more underdeveloped economies to support, it needs to get everybody to a similar level and deal with the tax havens, not do some SV-hypergrowth model where the issues will magically resolve themselves if only you can have 15% population growth by acquiring more members.

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In my view China has used exactly some SV-hypergrowth model where almost every Chinese living is 50x better off than their parents.

Yes, and that's great for China. But for a country to benefit the EU by becoming a member, it would have to be above EU average and be a net-contributor. Turkey isn't anywhere close, so it would be another money sink for the EU.

Isn't the issue with the EU it's underperformance to what the Chinese did in half the time?

It's not that simple. You'll want to look at GDP/capita to compare countries in general.

My point is a different one though: If Turkey joined the EU, it wouldn't be a net contributor, it would get huge subsidies from the EU. As such, it wouldn't benefit the EU economically, and it would be a disaster politically. It may be nice for some private companies to get easier access to a new market, but the price would be much too high, and I'm fairly certain that the EU would not survive Turkey as a member state.

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