China may be poised to overtake the US as the world’s top economy sooner than expected, according to one measure, but some underwhelmed Chinese would rather have clean air and political freedoms.
The World Bank on Wednesday published a vast study on the rankings of national wealth creation on the basis of 2011 figures.
It was carried out with several international organizations to compare national production figures in nominal terms, and also to reflect differences in buying power — or purchasing power parity (PPP).
The US’ GDP in 2011 was US$15.533 trillion, more than twice China’s US$7.321 trillion. However, after adjusting for PPP, the figure for China rose to US$13.495 trillion — which means that the rapidly growing Asian giant could overtake the US as soon as this year. Yesterday was a public holiday in China so official reaction was not immediately available. Communist authorities have in the past played down such talk, keen instead to stress that in per capita terms, their people remain a long way behind the world’s richest nations.
There was skepticism, and cynicism, among Chinese social media users.
“They are talking about PPP, not GDP,” wrote one of them on microblogging site Sina Weibo.
“As long as GDP, China is still far behind US,” said the post, which was written in English and was echoed by several others.
Some Sina Weibo users suggested they were more interested in tangible indicators directly related to their quality of life.
“Low income, cannot breath freely, no freedom, why should I care even if it’s No. 1 in the Universe? Not to mention No. 1 on Earth,” a user wrote.
“Is this more important than blue sky and clear water?” another asked.
One user suggested that such rankings were more closely watched overseas than in China.
“No domestic reports about this, only foreign media always talk about it,” the post said.
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