While it is good that China’s economic prowess may be waning, it is also destabilizing if Communist China seek to replace their economic might with military might.
The Chinese economy’s decades-long run of tremendous growth has finally found its end, Ruchir Sharma wrote in the Financial Times.
Now, the world’s second-largest economy accounts for a smaller share of global GDP.
“In a historic turn, China’s rise as an economic superpower is reversing. The biggest global story of the past half century may be over,” the Rockefeller International chairman said.
In nominal dollar terms — which Sharma argues is the most accurate measure of an economy’s relative strength — China’s share of world GDP began slipping in 2022 as strict zero-COVID measures remained in place for most of the year.
Despite expectations for a blowout rebound, China’s share will fall further in 2023, hitting 17%. That puts China on pace for a two-year drop of 1.4 percentage points, a slide not seen since the 1960s and 1970s, when Mao Zedong presided over a weak economy, he added.
China has never been a “conquering country,” so–aside from Taiwan, which they have claimed as theirs for long, long, time–it’s not likely we’ll have to give up Hawaii.