Is China already the world’s most dominant economy?
IN 2010, WHEN President Barack Obama welcomed his Chinese counterpart to a summit in Washington, DC, he greeted him with a handshake and a swift, shallow dip of the head. The image of America’s president bowing before China made an arresting cover photo for the book “Eclipse”, published the following year. The book, written by Arvind Subramanian of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Washington-based think-tank, predicted that China would soon come to dominate the world economy and that America could do precious little about it. Your correspondent once included the cover image in a presentation at the Central Party School in Beijing. It caused quite a frisson.
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To gauge a country’s economic “dominance” Mr Subramanian combined its share of world trade, net capital exports and global GDP…
