|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GUARDIAN Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:06:04 GMT
• Japanese economy grew by just 0.1% in second quarter
• Figures seen as 'symbolic' shift in world power
China overtook Japan as the world's second-largest economy during the second quarter of this year, marking another milestone in the country's transformation from impoverished communist state to economic superpower.
With its red-hot economy growing at around 9% a year, some experts now expect China to outstrip the United States as soon as 2030, its financial strength carrying broad political implications.
Official data published today showed a faltering Japanese economy growing by just 0.1% in the three months to June, with GDP of $1.28tn (£826bn) eclipsed by China, which had economic output of $1.33tn.Although it is not the first time China has outpaced Japan in a single quarter, most economists now expect the emergent economy to end the year firmly ahead.
China's spectacular growth since Deng Xiaoping began to introduce free-market reforms three decades ago has seen it bounding up the world league of economic powers. Just 10 years ago, it was the sixth-largest in the world but has since outstripped Britain and France in 2005 and Germany in 2007. It overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter last year and also became the largest car market.
John Hawksworth, chief economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, described the figures as a "symbolic" shift. He said: "Clearly it was inevitable, it was a just a question of when it would happen – just as it is pretty inevitable in the long run that it will be bigger than the US as well, because it has four times the population."
For now, China remains a distant second behind the US. The International Monetary Fund expects China's GDP to reach $5.36tn this year, while the US is expected to hit $14.79tn. The UK projection is $2.22tn. Japan is expected to have GDP of $5.27tn.
Nick Parsons, head of research at National Australia Bank, said the global financial crisis, which pitched more developed economies into recession, has underlined the shifting world power. "The Chinese economy has more than doubled in size in the past 10 years and will double in size again in the next 10 and I don't think the financial crisis has accelerated that change as much as it has cemented it," he added.
For Japan, the figures reflect the continued decline of a nation that has held the second spot since 1968, when it overtook West Germany, the result of a remarkable rise as a manufacturing and financial giant in the wake of the second world war.
But the "economic miracle" came to a juddering halt at the beginning of the 1990s when a property bubble burst. What followed was a lost decade in the doldrums and the country has never fully recovered. Today, it faces deflation, an ageing and shrinking population and only minimal growth.
Economists also cited the figures as evidence that the global recovery was still facing strong headwinds.
China's breakneck growth has not come without cost, causing huge social upheaval, including large-scale migration from the countryside to cities, which are growing at an unprecedented rate. Consultancy firm McKinsey reckons that China's urban population will almost double by 2025, when it will have 221 cities with populations of more than 1 million, compared with 35 in Europe. China has continued growing through the recession, in part owing to a $586bn stimulus package.
The headline growth figures also mask huge disparities of income in China, which has a population of 1.3 billion; the UN estimates that 300 million have been lifted from poverty since the reforms began, but while luxury boutiques spring up in Shanghai and Beijing, hundreds of millions still live in severe hardship, particularly in rural areas. Japan's people are still among the richest in the world, with GDP per capita of $39,700, compared with $46,400 in the US and just $3,600 in China.
The rapid advances in China have also led to environmental problems: in 2006, the country overtook the US as...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Full List of China articles |
NEWS SUMMARY
Typhoon hits South Korean capital
US accuses 11 of honey smuggling
More than 10,000 vehicles stuck in new China jam
Manila in hostage coffin 'mix-up'
EU presses China over fake goods
China begins Yellow Sea exercises
Hong Kong seeks minimum wage deal
US drops China currency probe
Chinese court to tackle HIV case
Hong Kong rally over Manila dead
Hong Kong rally over Manila dead
Seeing red: Unseen images from China's lost decade
Success for China amputee pianist
India blocks China defence ties
Chinese man buys van with years of loose change
Kim's visit to China leaves Carter hanging
Hong Kong mourns hijack victims
Hong Kong mourns Manila victims
N Korea's Kim Jong-il 'in China'
Manila siege victims flown home
China plane flight recorder found
China survivors heard 'jolts' before crash
Rocking on
China plane crash black box found
The ten-day traffic jam driving China mad
IMPORTANT : Please use top right "PayPal Donate" link to help sustain SpideredNews.com. 
