(current US$, not adjusted for
purchasing power parity) - United States, China (in trillions of US$, 1960–2019)
China's economy was
estimated to be the largest in the 16th, 17th and early 18th century.
Joseph Stiglitz said the "Chinese Century" had begun in 2014.
The Economist has argued that "the Chinese Century is well under way", citing China's GDP since 2013, if calculated on a
purchasing-power-parity basis. From 2013, China created the
Belt and Road Initiative, with future investments of almost $1 trillion which according to analysts has been a
geostrategic push for taking a larger role in global affairs. in counter to the
Trans-Pacific Partnership. The deal has been considered by some commentators as a "huge victory" for China, although it has been shown that it would add just 0.08% to China's 2030 GDP without
India's participation. Ryan Hass, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the
Brookings Institution, said that much of the narrative of China "inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States" was promoted by China's state-affiliated media outlets, adding, "Authoritarian systems excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses." According to
Barry Naughton, a professor and China expert at the
University of California, San Diego, the average income in China was for urban households and for rural households in 2019. Even at the
purchasing power parity conversion rate, the average urban income was just over and the average rural income was just under in China. Naughton questioned whether it is sensible for a
middle income country of this kind to be taking "such a disproportionate part of the risky expenditure involved in pioneering new technologies". He commented that while it does not make sense from a purely economic perspective, Chinese policymakers have "other considerations" when implementing their industrial policy such as Made in China 2025. Depending on different assumptions of scenarios, it has been estimated that China would either overtake the U.S. to become the world's biggest economy in the 2030s or never be able to do so.
International relations In 2011,
Michael Beckley, then a research fellow at the
Harvard Kennedy School, released his journal ''China's Century? Why America's Edge Will Endure'' which rejects that the
U.S. is in decline relative to China or that the hegemonic burdens the U.S. bears to sustain a globalized system contributes to its decline. Beckley argues the U.S. power is durable, and "
unipolarity" and
globalization are the main reasons. He says, "The United States derives competitive advantages from its preponderant position, and globalization allows it to exploit these advantages, attracting economic activity and manipulating the international system to its benefit." Beckley believes that if the United States was in terminal decline, it would adopt
neomercantilist economic policies and disengage from military commitments in
Asia. "If however, the United States is not in decline, and if globalization and hegemony are the main reasons why, then the United States should do the opposite: it should contain China’s growth by maintaining a liberal international economic policy, and it should subdue China’s ambitions by sustaining a robust political and military presence in Asia." Similarly,
Fareed Zakaria writes, "The unipolar order of the last two decades is waning not because of Iraq but because of the broader diffusion of power across the world."
Paul Kipchumba in ''Africa in China's 21st Century: In Search of a Strategy'' predicts a deadly
cold war between the U.S. and China in the 21st century, and, if that cold war does not occur, he predicts China will supplant the U.S. in all aspects of global hegemony. Academic
Rosemary Foot writes that the rise of China has led to some renegotiations of the U.S. hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, but inconsistency between China's stated ambitions and policy actions has prompted various forms of resistance which leaves U.S. hegemony only partially challenged. Meanwhile,
C. Raja Mohan observes that "many of China’s neighbors are steadily drifting toward either neutrality between
Beijing and
Washington or simply acceptance of being dominated by their giant neighbor." However, he also notes that
Australia,
India, and
Japan have readily challenged Beijing. Richard Heyderian proposes that "America’s edge over China is its broad and surprisingly durable network of regional alliances, particularly with middle powers Japan, Australia and, increasingly, India, which share common, though not identical, concerns over China’s rising assertiveness." In the midst of global concerns that China's economic influence included political leverage,
Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated "No matter how far China develops, it will never seek hegemony". At several international summits, one being the
World Economic Forum in January 2021, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated a preference for multilateralism and international cooperation. According to former Singaporean Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew, China will "[initially] want to share this century as co-equals with the U.S.", but have "the intention to be the greatest power in the world" eventually. In 2018,
Xiangming Chen wrote that China was potentially creating a
New Great Game, shifted to
geoeconomic competition compared with the original
Great Game. Chen stated that China would play the role of the British Empire (and Russia the role of the 19th century Russian Empire) in the analogy as the "dominant power players vs. the weaker independent Central Asian states". Additionally, he suggested that ultimately the Belt and Road Initiative could turn the "China-Central Asia nexus into a vassal relationship characterized by cross-border investment by China for border security and political stability."
Science and technology Military strength Demography China's emergence as a global economic power is tied to its large, working population. However, the population in China is aging faster than almost any other country in history. In 2050, the proportion of Chinese over retirement age will become 39 percent of the total population according to projections. China is rapidly aging at an earlier stage of its development than other countries.
Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist and demographic expert at the
American Enterprise Institute, said that current demographic trends will overwhelm China's economy and geopolitics, making its rise much more uncertain. He said, "The age of heroic economic growth is over." Ryan Hass at the Brookings said that China's "working-age population is already shrinking; by 2050, China will go from having eight workers per retiree now to two workers per retiree. Moreover, it has already squeezed out most of the large productivity gains that come with a population becoming more educated and urban and adopting technologies to make manufacturing more efficient." According to American economist
Scott Rozelle and researcher Natalie Hell, "China looks a lot more like 1980s Mexico or Turkey than 1980s Taiwan or South Korea. No country has ever made it to high-income status with high school attainment rates below 50 percent. With China's high school attainment rate of 30 percent, the country could be in grave trouble." They warn that China risks falling into the
middle income trap due to the
rural urban divide in education and
structural unemployment. Economists Martin Chorzempa and Tianlei Huang of the
Peterson Institute agree with this assessment, adding that "China has overlooked rural development much too long", and must invest in the educational and health resources of its rural communities to solve an ongoing
human capital crisis. The economy of China expanded by 2.3% while the U.S. economy and the
eurozone are expected to have shrunk by 3.6% and 7.4% respectively. China's share of the global GDP rose to 16.8%, while the U.S. economy accounted for 22.2% of global GDP in 2020. By the end of 2024, however, the Chinese economy is expected to be smaller than what was previously projected, while the U.S. economy is expected to be larger, according to the International Monetary Funds 2021 report on the global economic outlook. China's increased lending has been primarily driven by its desire to increase economic growth as fast as possible. The performance of local government officials has for decades been evaluated almost entirely on their ability to produce economic growth. Amanda Lee reports in the
South China Morning Post that "as China’s growth has slowed, there are growing concerns that many of these debts are at risk of default, which could trigger a systemic crisis in China’s state-dominated financial system".
Diana Choyleva of Enodo Economics predicts that China's debt ratio will soon surpass that of Japan at the peak of its crisis. Choyleva argues "For evidence that Beijing realizes it is drowning in debt and needs a lifebuoy, look no further than the government's own actions. It is finally injecting a degree of pricing discipline into the corporate bond market and it is actively encouraging foreign investors to help finance the reduction of a huge pile of bad debt." However, the
Peterson Institute for International Economics notes that China's National Bureau of Statistics is increasing its adoption of international standards on macroeconomic data. According to American strategist and historian
Edward Luttwak, China will not be burdened by huge economic or population problems, but will fail strategically because "the emperor makes all the decisions and he doesn't have anybody to correct him." He said that geopolitically, China "gained one year in the race" in 2020 by using the measures of a
totalitarian government, but this has brought the "China threat" to the fore, pushing other governments to respond. Sociologist Ho-Fung Hung stated that, although China's extensive lending during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed a quick rebound after the initial lockdown, it contributed to the already deep indebtedness of many of China's corporations, slowing the economy by 2021 and depressing long-term performance. Hung also pointed out that in 2008, although it was claimed mainly in propaganda that the
Chinese yuan could overtake the US dollar as a reserve currency, after a decade the yuan has since stalled and decreased in international usage, ranking below the British pound sterling, let alone the dollar.
Chinese decline Some scholars argue that China's rise will be over by the 2020s. According to foreign policy experts Michael Beckley and
Hal Brands, China, as a
revisionist power, has little time to change the status quo of the world in its favor due to "severe resource scarcity", "demographic collapse", and "losing access to the welcoming world that enabled its advance", adding that "peak China" has already come. According to Andrew Erickson of the
U.S. Naval War College and Gabriel Collins of the
Baker Institute, China's power is peaking, creating "a decade of danger from a system that increasingly realizes it only has a short time to fulfill some of its most critical, long-held goals".
David Von Drehle, a columnist for
The Washington Post, wrote that it would be more difficult for the West to manage China's decline than its rise. According to John Mueller at the
Cato Institute, a "descent or at least prolonged stagnation might come about, rather than a continued rise" for China. He listed the environment, corruption, ethnic and religious tensions, Chinese hostility toward foreign businesses, among others, as contributing factors to China's impending decline. According to
Yi Fuxian, a demographer and reproductive health researcher at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Chinese Century is "already over". In contrast,
Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for
The New York Times wrote: "There was a time when people came to America to see the future ... Now they come here [to China]." ==See also==