By John Ross
The announcement of China’s 5.2% total GDP growth in 2023, and 5.4% per capita GDP growth, is important not only because it was above the 5% target for that year but because it means China is continuing to grow ahead of its goal to double total GDP between 2020 and 2035 which was set at the time of the adoption of the present Five-Year Plan. This is shown in the graph below.
To achieve China’s target of doubling GDP between 2020 and 2035 it had to achieve a 4.7% annual average growth rate. So far since 2020 China has achieved an annual average 5.5% growth rate – with a per capita GDP annual average increase of 5.6%. From 2020-2023, to be on target for achieving its 2035 goal, China’s total GDP increase had to be 15.5% and in fact it achieved 17.7%.
For strategic comparison, the U.S. annual average GDP growth over the last 12 years was 2.2%. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office, which makes the official economic projections for the U.S. government policy making, projects that the U.S. economy will grow at 1.8% a year until 2033 and 1.4% year from then onwards. But even if the higher rate of annual 2.2% growth is achieved the U.S. economy would only grow by 39% between 2020 and 2035 whereas China would grow by 100%. That is China’s growth would be more than two and half times as fast as the U.S.
In short, in addition to its immediate significance, the new GDP figure for 2023 shows that China continues to be growing above its strategic target for 2035 – at a rate far exceeding the U.S.. All the claims of “strength” in the U.S. economy and “crisis” in China are the purest hot air.