China Surpasses Japan as World's #2 Economy
According to recent news reports out of the World Bank, China is now the world's number two economy, passing Japan.
China's fast-growing economy has been moving forward at more than 10% a year for many years and is likely to become the world's largest economic superpower, bypassing America by 2025, or maybe even as soon as 2017 as I pointed out recently.
Ultimately, it has been a long time coming, and I am sure some face and pride has been lost by Japanese people as a close Asian neighbor and World War II rival bypasses them to become the second largest economy in the world. Japan, after developing very quickly, has stagnated, seeing low growth for many years. China showed up late to the capitalist free market party, but it has been embracing it and growing full force since.
Having just spent time some time in China, I was really impressed with the amount of growth going on in the country. As you walk the streets, it is surprising the number of times you see people mixing concrete, building the future of the nation. There are many infrastructure projects going on and the people are of one mind pushing forward.
One resource China is very rich in is people. China has a high 92% literacy rate and a team attitude to get things done. Passing a construction site in China, everyone seemed busy and there were not many people standing around holding shovels. Compared to America, much of the construction is being done with bags of concrete, shovels and wheelbarrows as opposed to a cement trucks and other specialized heavy equipment, but that means there is still a lot of room for continued growth and efficiency improvements for years to come.
China's standard of living is also coming up dramatically. Satellite dishes line roof lines. While people still do laundry by hand, modern conveniences like electric bikes, cars and washing machines are being widely adopted.
China may still face difficulties in the coming years over environment, currency evaluations, corruption and politics, which remain areas where there is a still limited freedom.
