“FT”: China’s economic growth is coming to an end. Global GDP is growing, among others: thanks Poland

As he points out, after stagnation under Mao Zedong in the 1960s and 1970s, China opened up to the world in the 1980s – and continued to be successful in the following decades. Their share in the global economy has increased almost tenfold from less than 2%. in 1990 to 18.4 percent in 2021. “No nation has ever advanced so far and so quickly,” he notes.

But then the reversal began. In 2022, China’s share in the global economy has decreased slightly. This year it will decrease more significantly, to 17%. This two-year decline of 1.4 percent. is the largest since the 1960s.

Sharma writes that China’s weakening could change the world order. He explains that since the 1990s, the country’s share of global GDP has grown mainly at the expense of Europe and Japan, whose share has remained more or less constant over the last two years, and the gap left by China has been filled mainly by the United States and emerging countries.

“To put this in perspective, the global economy is expected to grow by $8 trillion in 2022 and 2023 to $105 trillion. China will not account for any part of this growth, the US will account for 45% and other countries emerging countries for 50 percent. Half of the growth of emerging countries will come from just five of them: India, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil and Poland. This is a striking sign of a possible shift in power in the future,” he points out.

The author writes that the decline in China’s share in the global economy will continue, including: due to unfavorable demographic factors. He points out that their share of the world’s working-age population has fallen from a peak of 24%. up to 19 percent and it is expected to drop to 10% over the next 35 years. “As our share of the world’s workforce declines, a smaller share of growth is almost certain,” he explains. He adds that the problem is exacerbated by the decline in productivity of Chinese workers.

Sharma points out that investors are withdrawing money from China at a record pace – in the third quarter of this year, foreigners reduced their investments in Chinese factories and other projects by USD 12 billion, which is the first such decline since statistics began. “Locals, who often flee foreigners from a troubled market, are also leaving. Chinese investors are making overseas investments at an extremely fast pace and scouring the world for real estate deals,” he writes.

As he notes, Chinese President Xi Jinping has in the past expressed utmost confidence that history is changing in his country’s favor and nothing can stop its rise, but his meetings with US President Joe Biden and US company executives last week in San Francisco suggested that recognized that China still needs foreign business partners. “But no matter what Xi does, his country’s share in the global economy is likely to decline in the foreseeable future. This is now a post-China world,” emphasizes Sharma.

Bartłomiej Niedziński from London