08/05/2008 12:41:29 AM 
(1) 
(1) One real highlight of the piece was a great dose of reality concerning China.
"...even at its present growth rate, China’s GDP will take a quarter of a century to catch up with America’s; and the internal tensions that China’s rapidly changing economy has caused may well lead it to stumble before then."
With the upcoming Olympics, it will be clear that China is presenting itself as the leader on the global stage, while the real facts suggest it still has some way to go.
Posted by Ed Cotton
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I read that Economist on the flight back to China Ed and as ever with metrics and China its important to take a closer look. For example China is a three to four tier society. The bottom tiers are never going to be given the chance to have the same life as the top tier. So even if we divided the population of China by a full quarter we're looking at over 300 million people who are currently on schedule to catch up with say the US in 10 years time. Then we need to factor in the decline of the U.S. which may or may not happen. One thing is for sure. A discussion of that subject is very sensitive in the U.S. given that China holds most US debt. I'm not saying that one or the other will achieve economic dominance. I'm just saying there's a lot more to the discussion than the Economist nugget which is over simplistic.