China will overtake the US economically in six years, an official research institute predicts, and go on to become the world’s most important country in three decades more, state media said yesterday.
The findings came from the Nation’s Health Report issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Global Times said, without giving details of the criteria used for the prediction.
China’s economy would be larger than the US’ by 2019, it cited the report as saying, and China’s “international status” would exceed that of the US by 2049.
China ranked as the 11th “healthiest” country out of about 100 nations, it said, just behind Costa Rica, with Sweden at No. 1.
The Xinhua news agency said China was given a national health status of “up to standard,” while the US, Japan and Britain were deemed “health deficient.”
“National health” was defined as a country’s “overall conditions ... using resource sufficiency and wealth distribution as the major criteria,” the Global Times said.
The report could not be independently obtained.
China’s stunning economic growth, increase in military spending and overlapping security interests in the Asia-Pacific region with the US have sparked concerns the countries could find themselves increasingly at odds in the coming decades as they jockey for global influence.
However, the Global Times said the report’s findings were seen by some as overly nationalistic.
“The report is indicative of an anti-US sentiment in Chinese society,” Fang Shimin (方是民), a whistleblower on academic fraud who uses the pseudonymn Fang Zhouzi (方舟子), told the paper.
“It casts the US as a potential threat and links the goals of China’s national revival to surpassing the US,” he added.
International analysts widely expect China’s economy to overtake the US’ in terms of GDP some time in the first half of this century, but they also say the US is likely to remain wealthier on a per capita basis given China’s 1.3 billion-strong population.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in