Will China’s economy ever overtake America’s in size?
Perhaps not, as the population peaks earlier than expected
By Simon Cox: China economics editor, The Economist, Hong Kong
THIS PUBLICATION is full of short-term predictions, peeking over the fence into the year ahead. China’s rulers are more daring. They gaze into the distant future, making pronouncements about their country’s trajectory decades ahead, rather than just a year.
In 1987 Deng Xiaoping, then China’s paramount leader, said that China would strive to quadruple its GDP per person in the last two decades of the 20th century, then quadruple it again within the first 30-50 years of the 21st. More recently, Xi Jinping said in November 2020 that it was “entirely possible” for China to double its GDP between 2020 and 2035. If he is right, then China could overtake America to become the world’s biggest economy by the middle of the next decade. That prospect makes many in America nervous.
