[formosaplastics]

Japan's economy could never overtake America's because Japan's population is less than half of America's (130 mil. vs. 285 mi.). In order for Japan's GDP to be greater than America's, the Japanese per-capita GDP would have to be around $100,000 per year instead of about $40,000. That just isn't going to happen. On the other hand, China's GDP is not limited by population size. A country's population size/labor pool is a major variable in determining a country's "production possibilities frontier" or maximum GDP potential. The more people a country has, the more economic output it can produce. One would naturally expect that if there are two First World countries and the first has a population of 100 mil. and the second has 50 mil., the first country's GDP would be roughly twice the size of the second's. There are other factors too such as whether or not the country's government implements pro-capitalist economic policies, and China's authoritarian government can clearly more expeditiously enact such policies than messy Third World legislatures can.

[The Pheonix]

Thanks for all your sensible postings (as always)

I ask the doomsayers on this forum, "if China's economy did not collapse EVEN at the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1965-1978), why should it collapse now, when fundamentals are a zillion times better ?" Paul Kennedy, the author of "the rise and fall of Great powers", used statistics to prove that China still had good GDP growth rate even during the height of the Cultural Revolution, when there was a complete breakdown of Law and Order and there was total chaos.

Prediction of the impending collapse of China is nothing new, there were such forcasts during
the 1956,
and 1965,
and 1978,
and 1988,,
and recently as 1993
and 1998

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #62

The size of population is not the reason Japanese economy crashed in early 90's. There are many countries who boast large population which are still struggling. The reason they do not realize their growth potential is the shaky economic foundation not just as Americans see it, but even as other tiger economy or Japanese economy sees it.

As I said many times, the problem of China is not that it cannot grow to be a major economic power some day but rather that it tries to get there in a really unscrupulous way much like Indonesia did. It tends to ignore its vast territory, diverse ethnic groups, and different regional idiosyncracies.

If you keep at it, what will happen is a painful shakeout.