[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] The Rise of Asia
Apr. 13th, 2003 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldFrom the Times of India:
This news article--found, like some other good articles, among the dross at Free Republic--speaks about some interesting facts in the world economy. Canada, for instance, might be a wealthy country by world standards and be a force to be reckoned with, but its gross national income is 83% of Russia's. (Truth be told, I think that South Korea and Spain have much better claims to G-8 membership than Canada--they might still be somewhat poorer than Canada, but their populations are significantly larger and Spain can claim a vast and visible cultural influence that Canada lacks. We only got in the proto-G-7 anyway because the Americans wanted a non-European economic power in that group.)
Just as important, though, is the rise of Asian economies. Japan, despite its economic stagnation of late, remains an economic power to be reckoned with and will remain such indefinitely, even at the current abysmally slow rates of economic growth that have prevailed since the 1991 collapse of the Japanese economic boom. China's recent growth is also spectacular, although it made it to second place only because of its vast population of 1 300 million or so people. Still, the spurt of rapid economic growth that began with Deng Xiaopeng has continued to the present, making China a relatively and absolutely much stronger nation than it ever has been before in its post-Ming history.
Recently, I read the mid-1990s book Asia Megatrends, written by John Naisbitt. It's silly in the whole way of the pre-1997 "East Asia is destined to dominate the world" school of geopolitical thought. One interesting point that Naisbitt did make was that in 1993, when the World Bank stopped defining gross national income in terms of fluctuating currency exchange rates and instead used the PPP method (which focused upon how a national economy actually worked in internationally-consistent financial and monetary terms), China appeared out of nowhere to become the second-largest national economy in the world. Outside observers took note--perhaps took too much note, or at least too much uncritical note--of how China was much more important than it once seemed to be.
Now in the 2000s, it seemed like India has achieved China's feature of a decade previous. India now is still quite a poor country; indeed, I'd guess off-hand that the average statistical Indian now is poorer than the average statistical Chinese in the early 1990s. Still, India's gross national income measured in PPP terms is significantly larger than the gross national incomes of any of the European nation-state. In time, this will translate into something interesting in world-political terms.
India world's fourth largest economy: Report
WASHINGTON: India has consolidated its position as the world's fourth largest economy, behind the United States, China and Japan, in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), according to the latest World Development Indicators.
By conventional calculations, India's gross national income is only $477.4 billion but it translates into $2,913 billion PPP.
Ahead of India is the US with $9,781 billion (in both Conventional and PPP), China $5,027 billion in PPP and Japan with $3,246 billion PPP, the indicators, which cover statistics for the economy in 2001, state.
These "Big Four" are followed by Germany ($2,580 PPP), U.K. ($1,431 PPP) France ($1,425 PPP) and Italy ($1,422 PPP).
While Canada, the seventh member of the G-7 industrial countries, has a gross national income of $825 billion PPP, Russia, the 8th member of G-8, has a gross national income of $ 995 billion PPP, the indicators reveal.
Among South Asian countries, the PPP gross national income stood at $263 billion for Pakistan, $ 213 billion for Bangladesh, $61 billion for Sri Lanka and $32 billion for Nepal.
To arrive at Purchasing Power Parity, which the IMF regards As a true reflection of a country's economy and the purchasing power of its people, all goods and services in a country are calculated at US prices.
The conventional method is to give the figures for each country in its currency and then translate it into dollars at the foreign exchange value.
This news article--found, like some other good articles, among the dross at Free Republic--speaks about some interesting facts in the world economy. Canada, for instance, might be a wealthy country by world standards and be a force to be reckoned with, but its gross national income is 83% of Russia's. (Truth be told, I think that South Korea and Spain have much better claims to G-8 membership than Canada--they might still be somewhat poorer than Canada, but their populations are significantly larger and Spain can claim a vast and visible cultural influence that Canada lacks. We only got in the proto-G-7 anyway because the Americans wanted a non-European economic power in that group.)
Just as important, though, is the rise of Asian economies. Japan, despite its economic stagnation of late, remains an economic power to be reckoned with and will remain such indefinitely, even at the current abysmally slow rates of economic growth that have prevailed since the 1991 collapse of the Japanese economic boom. China's recent growth is also spectacular, although it made it to second place only because of its vast population of 1 300 million or so people. Still, the spurt of rapid economic growth that began with Deng Xiaopeng has continued to the present, making China a relatively and absolutely much stronger nation than it ever has been before in its post-Ming history.
Recently, I read the mid-1990s book Asia Megatrends, written by John Naisbitt. It's silly in the whole way of the pre-1997 "East Asia is destined to dominate the world" school of geopolitical thought. One interesting point that Naisbitt did make was that in 1993, when the World Bank stopped defining gross national income in terms of fluctuating currency exchange rates and instead used the PPP method (which focused upon how a national economy actually worked in internationally-consistent financial and monetary terms), China appeared out of nowhere to become the second-largest national economy in the world. Outside observers took note--perhaps took too much note, or at least too much uncritical note--of how China was much more important than it once seemed to be.
Now in the 2000s, it seemed like India has achieved China's feature of a decade previous. India now is still quite a poor country; indeed, I'd guess off-hand that the average statistical Indian now is poorer than the average statistical Chinese in the early 1990s. Still, India's gross national income measured in PPP terms is significantly larger than the gross national incomes of any of the European nation-state. In time, this will translate into something interesting in world-political terms.
