It's a nation of more than a billion people, it was going to happen eventually.

In fact, I remember seeing on the BBC that save for the past couple of centuries, China was the world's largest economy anyway.

It was inevitable. So say hello to our new overlords.

I'm surprised it'll take until 2030.

It depends on what you are measuring, and on what assumptions you make. Some predictions have China overtaking the US in GDP terms by the end of this decade, but those presume the PRC will continue to grow at 2007 rates while the US plods along at 2010 speeds, neither of which is very likely.

The basic problem for China is that it will become old before it becomes rich*. They have been running a one child per family policy for decades, and despite their communist heritage have no universal health service. Most of their population lives in rural poverty and the right to move to cities and earn better wages making stuff is strictly rationed. Soon their cities will run out of cheap labour, but the countryside will have run out of children to supply that need.

They have other significant issues to worry about too. The government is too close to many of their major companies, it directs investment into them which they should have to compete for, this will increasingly reduce earnings from those investments and starve better companies of funds. Corruption is rife and little can be done about that in a one party state.

Their education system has also not been reformed fast enough. China has nothing like enough high quality graduates to move beyond being a country that makes a lot of cheap tat and transforms into one where knowledge workers drive economic growth. Therefore, continued rapid expansion would require them to become the world's only manufacturer of cheap tat, wiping out competition from the rest of Asia and increasingly from Africa. This is only achievable if wages remain desperately low, and that is not a very good plan for a country that has high(ish) inflation and a decreasing ratio of young workers to the elderly they must support.

In short; never trust an economist who just draws a line through a graph of what has already happened, and assumes it will continue to point in the same direction forever.




* well, rich again, from the fall of the Roman empire until the mid 19th century it was the world's richest nation/empire, with not only the largest population but also the highest GDP per head (as far as anyone can tell). Their technological superiority in centuries gone by also beggars belief. Some argue, credibly, that they were in the early stages of something similar to the industrial revolution when the Mongols invaded and buggered it all up for them. Imagine how different history would have been if Magellan had rounded the cape of good hope only to get squashed by a steam ship.

Happens to me all the time Every time I play Civ

Considering China and Japan already own a majority of America (they have both bought bucket loads of American debt), they are probably already ahead...

Not really, they own a load of treasury bonds, that's a drop in the ocean. The combined value of China's land, companies, patents, infrastructure and all the other things that are actually worth money, when compared to America's is greatly smaller.

I'm awestruck by the ability of the fat and rich of Europe and America to feel materially inferior to the hard working, oppressed, and under paid inhabitants of what remains a third world country. The big problem with modern western society its complete lack of perspective and a total unwillingness to ever question even the most patently untrue claims if it helps us wallow in undeserved self pity.