Think Tanks From Five Countries Predict China to Overtake U.S. as World’s Largest Economy by 2035

Competing with the United States for global economic dominance, China is expected to surpass the U.S. GDP by around 2035. However, achieving this goal requires maintaining an annual growth rate of about 5%, with a minimum of 4%, making it challenging.

On the 1st, China’s Global Times reported, according to a joint research report by think tanks from five countries, including China’s Renmin University Chongyang Institute of Financial Studies, that China’s GDP is expected to overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy by around 2035. The research team, comprised of scholars from the United States, Russia, Canada, India, and China, predicts that China’s growth will lead the global economy in the future.

Global Times quoted domestic and international analysts saying that China will maintain steady growth momentum and cautiously address challenges while achieving its annual GDP growth target in 2024.

The report states that if China maintains an annual GDP growth rate of about 5% over the next few years and continues with a minimum growth rate of 4% until 2035, it will surpass the United States as the world’s leading economy around that time. The report is based on China’s faster economic growth, the continuous appreciation and internationalization of the yuan, and a long-term bullish outlook on the yuan against the U.S. dollar. It also mentioned that developing countries will become the core engine of global economic growth, and their high growth rates could double the world’s GDP within the next decade.

China has set its economic growth rate target 2024 at around 5%, exceeding some international organizations’ forecasts. Last year, it achieved a 5.2% growth over the previous year, surpassing the official target of “around 5%,” but the outlook for this year is expected to be tough.

John Ross, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute of Financial Studies, told the Global Times, “There’s no reason China can’t meet its GDP growth target for 2024.” He argued that China’s investment is much more efficient than the U.S., suggesting that if China invests about 40% of its GDP, its growth rate will reach 5%. Based on last year’s data, China will significantly outperform the U.S. and the European Union (EU), remaining a major driver of global economic growth as it has for the past 40 years.

Marco Fernandez, a researcher at the Brazil-based Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, suggested in an interview with the Global Times on the 23rd of the last month that China, already larger in purchasing power per capita, could very likely surpass the U.S. in GDP terms.

However, claims that China’s likelihood of becoming the global economic superpower over the U.S. is slim are also significant.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), predicted in a column posted on the Council’s blog on the 22nd of last month titled The Tilted Balance of Power: Peak China and the Resilience of the United States that assuming an annual growth rate of 5%, China might not surpass the U.S. by 2035.

Yan Xuetong, the director of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, also predicted at an international relations outlook seminar held at Tsinghua University on January 13 this year that “the gap in national power between China and the U.S. could widen rather than narrow in the next decade amid intensifying competition between the two countries.”