Halfway through a decade in which China set out to rebalance its economy, it is poised to drastically enlarge its role in the world. Let me explain why.
Back at the start of the decade, I made certain assumptions about how the so-called BRIC economies — Brazil, Russia, India and China — would perform in the 10 years ahead. Five years on, China is the only one of the four to have either met or possibly slightly surpassed my expectations. Assuming that China’s soon-to-be-published fourth-quarter gross domestic product number will come in at or close to 7.3 percent, as many experts assume, then from 2011 to 2014, China will have averaged real GDP growth of just less than 8 percent. I had assumed it would be 7.5 percent for the full decade (as did Chinese leaders back in 2011), and China could achieve this if its economy continues to grow by 7 percent for the next five years.
If so, it will have become a $10 trillion economy in current nominal U.S. dollars, well more than half the size of the U.S. (probably even bigger, adjusting for purchasing power), twice the size of Japan, bigger than Germany, France and Italy put together and not far off one and half times the size of the other three BRIC economies put together.
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