China, US: Which will be world’s biggest economy?

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China will overtake the United States economically within 6 years, an official research institute predicts, and go on to become the world's most important country in 3 decades more


MANILA, Philippines – China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by 2019, the official research institute headquartered in Beijing predicted.

The findings came weeks after the London-based Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) released its projection that the United States will remain on top of world rankings until 2022.

The CEBR estimated that the 2012 gross domestic product (GDP) of the US is at $15.6 trillion, China at $8.2 trillion, Japan at $5.9 trillion, and Germany at $3.4 trillion.

The findings putting China ahead of the US came from the Nation’s Health Report issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was reported by the Global Times on Wednesday, January 9, without giving details of the criteria used for the prediction.

China will go on to become the world’s most important country in 3 decades more and exceed US’ “international status” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic, the state research institute predicted.

Economic reform

“National health” was defined as a country’s “overall conditions… using resource sufficiency and wealth distribution,” Global Times, the official Xinhua news agency, said.

Decades of economic reform and openness to foreign investment have propelled China from a poor, overwhelmingly agricultural country to become the world’s second-largest economy behind US.

China’s stunning growth, increases in military spending and overlapping security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with the US have sparked concerns the countries could find themselves increasingly at odds in coming decades as they jockey for global influence.

‘Overly nationalistic’

In the Nation’s Health Report, China ranked as the 11th “healthiest” country out of some 100 nations, just behind Costa Rica, with Sweden in top position.

Global Times said China was given a national health status of “up to standard,” though the US, Japan and Britain were deemed “health deficient.”

The report could not immediately be independently obtained.

But the Global Times, which has close ties to China’s ruling Communist Party, said the document’s findings were seen by some as overly nationalistic.

“The report is indicative of an anti-US sentiment in Chinese society,” Fang Zhouzi, described as a prominent whistleblower on academic fraud, told the paper.

“It casts the US as a potential threat and links the goals of China’s national revival to surpassing the US,” he added. – Rappler.com, with Agence France-Presse

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