China's Economy: #2 GDP or #99 GDP per capita

According to a Bloomberg story today, "China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy last quarter, capping the nation’s three- decade rise from Communist isolation to emerging superpower. The country of 1.3 billion people will overtake the U.S., where annual GDP is about $14 trillion, as the world’s largest economy by 2027."

Adjusting for GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) on a per-capita basis, China (at $6,567) has a long way to go before it achieves "superpower" status, considering that it ranks #102 according to the CIA, #99 according to the IMF, and #92 according to the World Bank. In fact, on a per-capita basis in 2009, China ranked behind Namibia, Jamaica, Belize, Thailand, El Salvador, and Albania. And the last time the U.S. had per-capita GDP of $6,567 was back in 1932.

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