China's rise calls for cool heads

Australia has every reason to be close friends with Beijing and Washington. 
 
The rise of China and, following it, India is a massive realignment of economic and, in due course, political and strategic power at an unprecedented speed and scale.

By any measure China's growth has been extraordinary - from 1980 to 2010 its economy grew 18-fold, an annual average of 10 per cent. China has been the world's second largest economy since 2002 and according to the IMF's forecasts will overtake the US in 2016.

India's reforms started after those in China and its re-emergence as a global economic power has been more gradual. Still, from 1980 to 2010 India's GDP increased six-fold, an annual average of 6 per cent. In 1990 western Europe and North America produced 49 per cent of world GDP, but by 2030 their share will almost halve to 26 per cent, according to Willem Buiter at Citigroup.  Continue

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