680 { China’s Quest
by extensive and dire poverty raised itself to a quite comfortable mid-level
of development. According to the World Bank, China’s per capita GDP in
2012 was an “upper middle” level equivalent to US$6,188. That was up from
US$3,414 in 2008—an increase of 81 percent in four years. China has rep-
licated the developmental success of earlier East Asian modernizers, South
Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. As noted earlier, it is likely that the aggregate size
of China’s economy will surpass that of the United States in the not too dis-
tant future. Estimates of when that will happen depend on one’s assumptions.
Extrapolating from recent PRC growth trends, and assuming an only some-
what more modest rate of growth, China should reach within a decade or so
a standard of living comparable to that of South Korea or Japan circa 1998.
Assuming a per capita GDP equivalent to South Korea’s and multiplying by
China’s larger population produces a PRC GDP a third larger than that of the
United States. Assuming a per capita GDP half the level of Japan in 1998 and
accounting for China’s huge population yields a GDP more than double that
of the United States. Chicago University professor John Mearsheimer used
these figures to issue a warning for Americans to adopt a policy of deliberately
constraining the growth of Chinese power. Such an overwhelming economic
position was likely to produce a drive for hegemony in Asia, Mearsheimer
warned.^8 China would still be far poorer than the United States on a per
capita basis. But it is principally aggregate capacity that determines a state’s
ability to fund foreign activities or field military forces. A Chinese economy
larger than that of the United States would mean, other things being equal,
that China could exceed the United States in terms of creating and deploying
the normal instruments of state power.20000IndiaChinaBrazil
Mexico
Indonesia
Egypt40006000US $ billions, PPP8000100001200019601981198319851987198919911993199519971999200120032005200720092011
FIGU R E 25-2 China’s GDP Growth Compared to Other Large Developing Countries