China’s ‘25 GDP per capita on a purchasing-power parity basis is $29k to America’s $90k [1]. American real GDP per capita grew at 1.7% a year from 2015 to 2025 [2]. (American PPP GDP/c grew 4.5% a year from 2014 to 2024 [3].)
From 2004 to 2024, Chinese PPP GDP/c grew 7.4% a year [4]. If China and America keep growing at their respective rates, we wouldn’t expect convergence for 20+ (40, using America’s PPP GDP/c) years. That’s too long for our if condition to be expected to hold.
There is not a strong argument for Chinese GDP/capita, PPP-adjusted or not, approaching America’s within a generation. There is a risk China’s economy becomes bigger than ours in aggregate.
> what quality at that low price means is tofu dreg buildings, cancerous food items, waist high flooding every summer in cities, ghost buildings, and unsafe water (recently one of the most prosperous city, Hangzhou, had sewage seeped into the water for weeks, which the local government denied responsibility)
Your comment loses credibility with this rant.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA/
[3] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locat...
[4] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD?locat...
From 2004 to 2024, Chinese PPP GDP/c grew 7.4% a year [4].
What an incredibly dishonest comparison!
Let's do a side by side comparison? 2018 to 2023? 2023 is the last year with solid numbers.
US: 12% real GDP growth
China: 26% real GDP growth
Sounds impressive, until you account for the base.
US: +$2.4T USD
China: +$3.64T USD
Yikes! 4x the number of people, but 0.5x the GDP growth.
Yes, I chose the strongest form of the other side’s argument to show that even then, it’s difficult to argue that Chinese PPP GDP/c is approaching American levels within a generation. (Though China’s numbers don’t vary much between 10 and 20 years, America’s do since we had a lot of war and then economic stimulus in the 2000s.)
> 2018 to 2023?
You want to make multi-decade projections off a pandemic baseline?
> 4x the number of people, but 0.5x the GDP growth
Per capita means per person. Purchasing power means real production. The question was about potential living standards, not aggregate might.
Before everyone jumps in with GDP per capital with PPP, what quality at that low price means is tofu dreg buildings, cancerous food items, waist high flooding every summer in cities, ghost buildings, and unsafe water (recently one of the most prosperous city, Hangzhou, had sewage seeped into the water for weeks, which the local government denied responsibility).