Galloping Economic Development

Eugenio Bregolat

Chapter 2 in The Second Chinese Revolution, 2015, pp 34-152 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract If there is one image of China that is popular in the West, it is that of an economic giant that seems to just grow and grow. This economic growth is made particularly striking by the country’s huge scale. Its 9.6 million square kilometres make it the third-largest country in the world after Russia and Canada. Like them, it has continental dimensions, as do the United States, India and Brazil. But if we add to this territorial expanse a population of 1347 million in 2011, only India can stand comparison. The Chinese population is the same as that of Europe, the United States, Russia, Latin America, Indonesia and Australia combined. Forecasts are that this will rise to 1441 million in 2025 (with more than 400 million over-65s) then fall again to 1392 million in 2050 (by which time India will have 1593 million inhabitants). Again like India, but unlike the other countries mentioned, all of which belong to the European civilisation, China has its own civilisation. In terms of scale, European countries taken one by one cannot be compared with China; the real comparison is with the whole of the European Union. Heilongjiang and Hainan, for example, are no less different than Sweden and Spain. Like the EU, China spans all climates and has several time zones. Some Chinese provinces or autonomous cities, among them Shanghai, Canton and Beijing, enjoy a level of development on a par with the “four Asian Tigers” as they were only a few years ago.

Keywords: Foreign Direct Investment; Economic Reform; Purchasing Power Parity; Foreign Capital; Chinese Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-47599-2_3

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137475992_3

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