Over the last decade or so, it has become conventional wisdom that the U.S. is doomed to lose its status as the world’s largest economy, and that the 21st century will belong to the dragon in Asia. China, perhaps feeling the inevitability of its rise has become much more assertive in the geopolitical arena, even going so far as to declare a no-fly zone late last year. But there are reasons to doubt the conventional wisdom. In fact, while some not so long ago were predicting that China would overtake the U.S. by 2016/2017, some now believe that it may not happen until 2028 or later. China faces certain headwinds before they can become the world’s largest economy such as:
1.) Over the last few years, China has undertaking massive infrastructure and building projects. However, reports out of China are beginning to indicate that there has been massive overbuilding and that many buildings stand empty. What this means is that Chinese banks are likely sitting on billions of dollars of bad loans. While this may not mean that the Chinese economy is going to collapse, a massive economic slowdown cannot be ruled out which would put off the day that the Chinese pass the U.S.
2.) The shale boom in the U.S. has dropped the cost of energy in the U.S., leading many energy intensive manufacturing industries to view the U.S. as a place to “re-shore” production. Even more amazing, the U.S. is projected to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s #1 oil producer in a couple of years. A future U.S. administration more friendly to fossil fuels (approving the Keystone oil pipeline for example) would likely lead to more cheap energy increasing the attractiveness of the U.S. as a manufacturing location relative to China. While nobody is predicting that the situation will return to what it was in the 1950’s when the U.S. had more than 50% of the world’s manufacturing capacity and China had none, the increased manufacturing footprint in the U.S. will slow China’s economic rise relative to the U.S.
3.) China is suffering its own bout of off-shoring. Wages have risen in China relative to surrounding countries that some production is off-shoring to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and even Mexico as the economic recovery in the U.S. has increased the attractiveness of locating manufacturing near there. While China isn’t going to lose its title of “Workshop Of The World” to these countries, it isn’t a positive thing for China that companies are moving manufacturing away.
4.) China is facing a large demographic problem. Put simply, the one-child policy that China has had for a generation has created a society that is aging rapidly. Further exacerbating this is that the Chinese cultural preference for male children meant that there is estimated to be(as was reported a few years ago) around 50 million Chinese men for whom there is no corresponding Chinese woman. The upshot is that Chinese are now facing a declining labor force. Historically, demographic developments such as this have tended to result in slowing of extraordinary economic growth rates. True, the U.S. is facing its own demographic challenges. However, the U.S. has historically been the preferred destination of immigrants, which could mitigate some of these effects.
5.) The last major hurdle I will mention is the data itself. Those who predict that China will overtake the U.S. are largely taking Chinese economic data at face value. While nobody doubts that the Chinese economy has come a long way in the last 30 years (the evidence is there on the Shanghai skyline and various other industrialized cities around China), China claims that real economic growth has only been less than 7% in 2 of the last 30 years. Is this realistic? Perhaps. However, a government whose legitimacy rests on providing stellar economic growth rates would not likely shrink from padding the numbers here or there. The absence of an effective opposition in China makes the likelihood of such slight “exaggeration” over time more, not less, likely. Even a very slight exaggeration in growth rates, if carried out over a generation, would result in today’s official Chinese GDP numbers being substantially different than the reality. While I am not asserting that this is, in fact, the case, the possibility that the Chinese have been fudging the economic numbers should not be completely ruled out either.
In conclusion, perhaps it may be inevitable the Chinese will overtake the U.S. as the number 1 economy. However, there are still several headwinds that China must overcome to get there. If they fail to navigate these challenges competently, they may find their dream of being the number one economy deferred far into the future.