China: Number Two With a Bullet
Recently-released economic statistics confirm [1] what a lot of people could see coming: China officially passed Japan as the world's second-largest economy last quarter, reporting a quarterly GDP of $1.33 trillion. Some forecasters[2] believe that it's only a matter of time before the world's most populous nation also becomes the world's most prosperous, by overtaking the US.
China's rise -- from an impoverished agrarian nation limping along under a stridently-ideological dictatorship to the world's leading exporter and manufacturer -- took just three decades. Today China's infrastructure, government, and workforce are significantly better-developed. The country's trade policies, currency valuation, lack of labor standards, and vestiges of a command economy give it some short-term tactical advantages over more liberal, market-oriented competitors in North America, Asia and Europe. China is capable of operating at a scale that is inconceivable elsewhere in the world. What could possibly go wrong?
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