The United States has a habit of watching its rivals shrink. The Soviet Union collapsed. Japan, which was supposed to own America in the 1980s, is now a far smaller economy. China looks set to follow.
In 2021 China's GDP reached 76 percent of American GDP, and the consensus
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The United States has a habit of watching its rivals shrink. The Soviet Union collapsed. Japan, which was supposed to own America in the 1980s, is now a far smaller economy. China looks set to follow.
In 2021 China's GDP reached 76 percent of American GDP, and the consensus was that it would pass the US before 2030. That consensus has collapsed. By 2024 the US economy was 29.2 trillion dollars against China's 18.9 trillion, a gap that has widened for three straight years. China's working-age population is shrinking. Its fertility rate has fallen to roughly 1.0, half of replacement. There is no immigration to compensate.
Yet America benefits from believing it faces a formidable rival. The belief is what keeps it competing.
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