Five years to Chinese economic domination

Applying the CIA Factbook's 2005 growth rates to GDP numbers and extending for several years suggests that China's GDP will have surpassed that of the US by 2011 (in less than five years) when both countries will have GDPs of about $15 trillion. Of course it is expected that China's torrid 9.9% growth rate will slow, and China may be more prone to reporting errors but the trend to economic dominance role reversal is clear.


In 2005, the US had a GDP of $12.4 trillion and a growth rate of 3.5% and China had a GDP of $8.9 trillion and a growth rate of 9.9%. Developing world peer India starts with a lower base ($3.6 trillion in 2005) and has a healthy 7.6% growth rate, but is not forecast to catch up to the US and China in the next decade, if linear growth persists.

Interestingly, the arena for China's growth is not limited to the traditional, physical world of GDP; the more important Chinese economic dominance may be in digital worlds. Merely the opening act features China as already a huge participant in the digital economies of metaverse worlds like Second Life and Internet gaming by manning and sometimes creating and improving bots to mine gold and other MMORPG video game valuables.