As China is poised to become the world's largest economy by 2030, the Asian giant aims to rival the United States on the world stage. Leaders in Beijing are carefully cultivating economic power to maximize the country's global influence.
According to The World in 2050 report by PwC, China is projected to be the world's largest economy by 2050, contributing approximately 20% of global GDP. China has already surpassed the United States to become the world's largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP).
Some analysts even argue that China's economy may never surpass that of the United States. When considering further the vast soft power and geopolitical advantages the United States holds over China, it appears unlikely that China will displace the United States as a leading global power in the foreseeable future.
It has become an upper middle-income country that is part of the BRICS association of five major emerging economies. However, Brazil is currently caught in a low-growth trap. It is also one of the ten most unequal countries in the world.
How China became the world's second largest economy
Is Brazil in the 3rd world?
However, based on the rapid development of modernization and globalization, some countries previously considered to be Third World countries, such as Brazil, India, and Indonesia, achieved large economic growth and are no longer considered poor nations in the 21st century.
After the pandemic, China reported its worst annual GDP growth for more than three decades – coming in at 3% in 20221. Although this bounced back to 5.2% in 2023, there remain concerns among international investors over whether China is still an attractive market for capital allocation.
Driven by industrial production and manufacturing exports, China's GDP is actually now the largest in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) equivalence. Despite this growth, China's economy remains strictly controlled by its government where there are accusations of corruption, unfair dealings, and falsified data.
The report also said that India will surpass leading global economies in manufacturing, overtaking nations such as the US, China, Germany, South Korea, and Japan in the Industrial Production Index (IIP). "India to overtake top 5 economies in manufacturing IIP ...US, China, Germany, South Korea and Japan...
According to the forecast by Fathom Consulting, Asian economies such as China and India are expected to lead the global economy with the highest GDP share. The report forecasts China to have a share of 22.68% and reach $101 trillion by 2100.
China, India, and the United States will emerge as the world's three largest economies in 2050, with a total real U.S. dollar GDP of 70 percent more than the GDP of all the other G20 countries combined. In China and India alone, GDP is predicted to increase by nearly $60 trillion, the current size of the world economy.
The People's Republic of China has arguably received the most consistent coverage in the popular press of its potential superpower status, and has been identified as a rising or emerging economic and military superpower by academics and other experts.
As of 2021, both the U.S. and China fall above the world average on the United Nations' Human Development Index, but the U.S. is considered a very high human development country while China is labeled a high human development country.
U.S. Note: Based on the IMF World Economic Outlook in April 2023 and April 2024. Studies have shown that China's official self-reported GDP figures are not perfectly reflective of reality. Political motivations have frequently led Chinese officials to pad economic data.
London's Centre for Economics and Business Research calculated that China would indeed become the world's largest economy for 21 years, before the US reclaims the lead in 2057, itself to be overtaken by India around 2081.
Inflows of foreign capital, technology, and management knowhow enabled China to turn its vast labor resources and space to rapid economic growth. The shift to an open-door economic policy ushered in a period of high economic growth in the first half of the 1980s.
Nations such as China and Russia were once part of the Second World. Today, the nations are referred to as both first- and third-world countries. China has a growing economy and a stabilizing democratic government.
China's GDP is estimated to surpass that of the US, with the country becoming the world's largest economy in about 2035, said a report released by a think tank comprising scholars from five countries - the US, Russia, Canada, India and China.
The IMF said it had revised up both its 2024 and 2025 GDP targets by 0.4 percentage points but warned that growth in China would slow to 3.3% by 2029 due to an ageing population and slower expansion in productivity. It now expects China's economy to grow 5% in 2024 and to slow to 4.5% in 2025.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, escalating trade tensions with the United States and other major economies have weighed on China's export sector and overall economic confidence. Tariffs and trade barriers have disrupted supply chains and reduced global demand for Chinese goods.
It is even among the currencies that have depreciated the most. This above-average fall has internal explanations, according to economists. It has to do with a lack of confidence by economic agents about the Brazilian government's ability to fulfill its fiscal commitments and keep spending under control.
Brazil is home to 203 million people with a real GDP per capita of US$8,802 in 2022. It is a large federal country comprised of the union (federal government), 26 states (plus the Federal District), and over 5,500 municipalities.
Brazil's territorial dimension as a nation was achieved before the independence by the Portuguese-Brazilian monarchy (House of Bragança) in 1822, with later some territorial expansion and disputes with neighboring Spanish ex-colonies, making Brazil the largest contiguous territory in the Americas today.
