When will China’s economy be the largest?
At the end of this month, my wife and I will be revisiting China 10 years after we last travelled to the country on what was on our first experience of this resurgent nation [see my account of the trip here]. This time, we will be travelling with our young Chinese ‘family’ so we will see China through Chinese eyes and have the opportunity for many more conversations. One of the questions I want to put to Chinese people that we meet is when they expect the Chinese economy to become the largest in the world.
According to this page of Wikipedia: “The economy of the People’s Republic of China is the third largest in the world, after the United States and Japan (2008) with a nominal GDP of US$4.91 trillion (2009) when measured in exchange-rate terms. It is the second largest in the world after that of the U.S. with a GDP of $8.8 trillion (2009) when measured on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis.“
So when will China’s economic growth make it the largest economy on the planet? In preparation for our forthcoming trip, I’ve just started to read “When China Rules The World” by Martin Jacques. He quotes a Goldman Sachs study that forecasts that by 2025 the Chinese economy will be approaching in size that of the United States. In this article, the BBC predicts that the Chinese economy will be be the biggest in 2030.
Of course, even then, the per capita income of the Chinese will not begin to compare with the USA, Japan and most European states.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:58 am
When China rules the world, we will all miss being oppressed by the U.S.
March 5th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Actually, Nick, I don’t think China will rule the world – but it will have an increasingly powerful influence which we need to understand and anticipate.