Why China > Soviet Union - The Daily Beast
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Why China > Soviet Union
by Ryan Prior Jun 26, 2012 12:30 PM EDT
Members of the Guards of Honour of the Three Services of the Chinese People's Liberation Army march during a training session at a barracks in Beijing on July 21, 2011 (LIU JIN / AFP / Getty Images)
This week Michael Cembalest, chairman of market and investment strategy at JP Morgan, published a research letter with a graph showing the history of the world by GDP. It inspired Derek Thompson at
The Atlantic to write a great series of posts. The charts show that population was the primary determinant of prosperity in pre-industrial society, but after the 1800s, productivity became significantly more important:
Even from just a cursory look at Cembalest's original chart, another interesting trend is visible:
Russia, which has a population approximately half of the U.S. (140 million), never rivaled U.S. GDP throughout the Cold War. China today boasts a greater share of world GDP than the Soviets ever did at their 1950s peak. And the Chinese share only shows signs of growing ever more.
Two important differences in the emerging U.S.-China rivalry as compared to the U.S.-Soviet one. 1.) The Chinese population is more than three times the U.S. population, while ours was double that of Russia. 2.)
Chinese GDP is now booming as Soviet GDP never did."