If compared with the difference in GDP growth between China and the United States in the past few years, this judgment is roughly correct. According to the forecast of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the GDP growth rate of China and the United States in 2020 will be 1.9% and -4.3% respectively. China's GDP growth rate will exceed that of the United States by 6.2%, which is much higher than the 3.78% and 3.78% in 2018. 3.82% in 2019. Due to the poor growth rate in 2020, China's GDP will continue to narrow the gap with the United States. Based on exchange rate calculations, there is a high probability that China’s GDP will account for more than 70% of US GDP this year.
However, judging from the history of China-US GDP growth, the difference between China-US GDP growth rates in 2020 is not particularly striking. In the 42 years from the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in 1979 to 2020, China's annual economic growth rate has been higher than that of the United States. Among them, there are two phases where the economic growth rate difference is particularly obvious. The first stage is from 1991 to 1995. In these five years, the difference in GDP growth between China and the United States was 9.7% annually. The second stage is from 2006 to 2010. In these five years, the average annual GDP growth difference between China and the United States is as high as 10.4%. This is the most significant stage in which China has narrowed its economic gap with the United States since the reform and opening up. Among the top 10 rankings of the annual economic growth difference between China and the United States, 8 years fall into these two stages.
The difference in GDP growth between China and the United States depends on the growth rate of China's GDP itself. Second, it depends on the quality of the US economy. Of course, if the U.S. economy falls into recession, the gap in GDP growth between China and the U.S. will usually widen significantly. This was concentrated in the period after the outbreak of the US financial crisis in 2008.
China's economic aggregate has gradually approached the United States from small to large, which is the result of a longer period of time. The growth rate difference of 6.2% in 2020 can only be ranked 24th in the 42 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. Due to the sudden and occasional nature of the epidemic, the economies of various countries may return to normal in 2021, and the growth rate will increase significantly year-on-year. Also according to the IMF's forecast, China's GDP will be 8.2% in 2021 and that of the United States will be 3.1%, and the growth rate difference will fall back to 5.1%. Therefore, judging from the long-term period of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, 2020, which is in the epidemic stage, may not be a critical year for China’s economy to catch up with the United States, nor is it a year of acceleration, but it is also a very solid year that constitutes China’s economic growth. An important year for continued expansion of the global economic landscape.
The difference in economic growth between China and the United States is a normal reflection of the good or bad domestic economic development of the two countries. Any country that can fully mobilize the elements of economic development, release the vitality of economic growth through continuous reforms, and create a good environment conducive to economic development, will inevitably achieve better development results. To overemphasize the different impacts of the epidemic on the economic growth of China and the United States may be an exaggeration of the historical role of the epidemic. The sudden epidemic has brought a serious negative impact to the global economy, including China, and no country is immune. China will not start from the narrow Sino-US competition and rejoice in the narrowing of the Sino-US economic gap brought about by the new crown epidemic. What's more, China has already made clear the adjustment of its economic development concept from high-speed growth to high-quality growth. If China’s total economic volume surpasses the United States in the future, it is not and does not need to be due to the new crown pneumonia epidemic. This is only the cumulative result of China’s successful economic development mechanism over the past decades.
The real shaping of the global economy by the epidemic does not lie in the accelerated reduction of the gap between China’s economy and the United States, but in the fact that China and the United States, as the world’s top two economies, will further expand the gap with other economies. This is similar to the global political consequences of the 2008 international financial crisis. Under the crisis, the overall status of China and the United States in the global economic structure has become more prominent. Judging from the IMF's forecast, the US economy will grow at a much better rate this year than other major advanced economies, and its economic proportion in the advanced economies will further increase. The GDP of China and the United States will account for more than 40% of the global GDP. In this sense, China and the United States indeed shoulder the special and important responsibility of global economic growth. China and the United States must go beyond bilateral economic competition, play the role of global economic leaders, and ensure stable growth of the world economy under the epidemic through domestic economic stability and macro policy coordination.
(The author is the deputy director and professor of the American Studies Center of Fudan University)
