Reporting on a recent poll, the Pew Research Center revealed, “44% of the public now says China is the world’s leading economic power.” The overall results indicated a sharp decline in US confidence in its position (see the whole report here).
The degree of ignorance this reflects is somewhat staggering. The US’s economy is by far the world’s largest in absolute terms, as illustrated by this graph of GDP by year for several countries.
Certainly China has grown rapidly, passing Germany and the UK during the past decade, but even after that growth, the US’s GDP of $14 Trillion is over three times China’s $4.3 Trillion.
On a per capita basis, the difference is even more pronounced. The CIA World Factbook credits the US with 10th position on its country comparison of per capita GDP, with the US generating $47,500 for each and every person, while China sits at 133rd with about $6,000 of income per person. Per capita measures are, of course, good indicators of how well off individual people, not just the total wealth of the country.
James Fallows (the Atlantic Magazine) has written about our crisis of confidence recently, here and here. His pictures are quite strong illustrations of the gulf between China and the US.