China overtakes Japan as No.2 economy

World News • July 2010 • Views: 838

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China has overtaken Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

Depending on how fast its exchange rate rises, China is on course to overtake the United States and vault into the No.1 spot sometime around 2025, according to projections by the World Bank, Goldman Sachs and others

And so it begins - the final assault on the replacement of the US as the largest economy in the world (measured by GDP).

How will the revanchists act when they can’t say the US is #1 anymore?

How will American foreign policy change when we can no longer call the shots on our terms?

How will American politics change when US leaders have to pay heed to powers outside our nation?

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3 comments

Timmeh Sat, Jul 31, 2010 7:36:03pm

I wouldn’t extrapolate current trends to continue at the same rates for the next 15 years.

The same projections were made for Japan at the height of their economic bubble in the late 80s. It is a little more realistic perhaps to imagine that China will achieve what Japan could not based on its size, but it is not inevitable.

Assuming this does happen, I suspect that China will evolve into a more benign power, but I really have no idea.

freetoken Sat, Jul 31, 2010 8:05:27pm

re: #1 Timmeh

Generally speaking projections have not been based on China continuing in the future at the pace it has the past 10 years. If 11% growth is what happened recently, some are saying that 5 or 6% annual growth is to be expected over the couple of decades.

Even that will be tough with energy supplies limited. Which explains why China is planning on building hundreds of nuclear power plants, as well as being the world leader in wind and solar.

I don’t know what to expect of China as a society and a nation. I hope they become more relaxed in many of their stances, but they are now acting so mercantilistically that they may overplay their hand in Africa and Asia and start some real trouble.

This is not to say that we, the US, ought to make China out to be the boogeyman. Rather, we need to accept that we no longer will get our way in many international relations.

Bob Levin Sun, Aug 1, 2010 2:27:05am

re: #2 freetoken

Capitalism has changed quite a bit over my lifetime. The post WWII paradigm was one of raising the standard of living around the world—so that other countries will demand our products.

Essentially, our economy is one phase ahead of China’s. They have yet to build ecological effects into their idea of growth. This has to be done—it needed to be done in 19th century England, 20th century America, and it’s going to have to happen to 21st century China. I believe I posted something the other day about 40% of China’s water is unusable even for industrial purposes.

So our economic base has to move towards ecological products and services, and they are going to need to purchase those things.

The world economic game is no longer about dominance, as it was as the world crept up to two World Wars, but rather interconnectedness.

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