Amidst the growing geopolitical concerns, there has been an increasing worry that China will ascend in the global economic ranks and become the world's number one economy. This increased interest in this discussion has led to economists seriously analyzing China's growth to understand if the theory has any merit. Between the years of 2010 to 2016, China has maintained stable GDP growth at around 5-7 percent for much of the years, hitting highs and lows along the way. This growth is fueled by significant demand and also the sheer number of working people fueling the economy, whereas the Untied States focuses on wealth creation, specifically for the top 1 percent. But it goes beyond that.
China's sudden growth spurt in economic development is following a long culture of focusing on long-term development for economic growth. The United States focuses significantly more on the short term, looking closely at short term interest rates and short term levels of supply and demand. This is the key reason why growth over the long-term for the United States has been stable, but relatively low. China makes moves to put more money into infrastructure and education for the next generations in addition to promoting job creation for those without high-skilled education, creating a good market for low and high-skilled labor. Regardless of the ethics, economically it has been a good system, however China has been setback by errors and market fixtures in other areas of the sector.
Based on financial capital, infrastructure, legal environment and innovation, the United States maintains a larger margin than China, however this margin is quickly closing simply by China's emphasis on long-term production and wealth creation. Imagine that: so many elements to bolster economic growth, however the United States fails to accommodate for sustainable development and for the distribution of wealth across the population. The differences in mindset stem from the focus of the individual. In the United States, the individual is there to work for themselves and to promote their own goals and ideals. In countries like China there is more of a community perspective in that every individual belongs to a collective whole and exists to better the ideals of that whole. In this instance, China values sustainable development for the long-term and future generations much more than that of the United States. There are more investments to infrastructure there - both financial, economic and physical, more investments put into fund innovation and education and more projects being developed to overall increase the amount of wealth in China so the population as a whole can achieve a better standard of living. The methods used are still primitive and have not even begun to matriculate, however when they do, we will see a strong country with decades of further growth ahead of itself, something the United States should take into account if it wishes to stay number one.
