The warning by the former commerce minister Chen Deming that China should not assume it will overtake the United States to become the world’s top superpower should serve as a wake-up call to those harbouring illusions about China’s place in the world, while ignoring the challenges ahead. “Do not take it for granted that China is number two, and do not make the assumption that we will be number one sooner or later,” Chen told a forum organised by the Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank last Sunday.
The perception that China is the number two global power and on the path to become number one is based on two questionable assumptions – one, that China’s stellar growth levels, which outpace those of its main competitors, will continue on the same path, and two, that gross domestic product or the size of the economy equates to national power.
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The perception that China is the number two global power and on the path to become number one is based on two questionable assumptions – one, that China’s stellar growth levels, which outpace those of its main competitors, will continue on the same path, and two, that gross domestic product or the size of the economy equates to national power.
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