In 2023, although the GDP gap between China and the United States has widened again, the victory or defeat of the Sino-US battle has been decided, and the advantage of the United States over China has gradually weakened. This is especially evident in the context of Yellen's paving the way for her visit to China, which recently saw the third economic work conference between China and the United States.
Recently, Western countries led by the United States have been hyping up the Chinese economy, claiming that China's economic development has peaked. It has to be mentioned that their main basis is GDP comparison at the exchange rate. Indeed, in exchange rate terms, the gap between China's GDP and that of the United States in 2023 will widen. In dollar terms, China's GDP accounted for 65% of the United States in 2023, compared to 76 in 20214%, compared to 70 in 20225%。
However, some experts pointed out that the widening of the GDP gap between China and the United States in 2023 is mainly due to inflation and rising exchange rates, rather than the fact that the real economic growth of the United States has surpassed that of China. If calculated in terms of purchasing power parity, China is still ahead of the United States. And China's growth rate is more than twice as fast as that of the United States, with China's growth rate being 52%, compared to 2 in the United States5%。Therefore, our concerns about the West ** are unnecessary.
In fact, from a certain point of view, the competition between China and the United States has become clear, and the United States' advantage over China is gradually weakening, which even Biden has to admit in the United States. Recently, at an event of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Sullivan, an assistant for U.S. affairs, said frankly when talking about the "future of Sino-US relations" that the United States has realized that decades of attempts to shape or change China have not succeeded.
Sullivan believes that China will play an important role on the world stage in the foreseeable future. No matter how much China and the United States compete, they must find a way to coexist. The United States and China are economically interdependent and have common interests that need to work together to address transnational issues and reduce the risk of conflict.
It is worth noting that despite the fact that Western countries continue to talk about China's economy, the United States has sent a delegation to China for economic work talks. During the visit, He Lifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China, vice premier, member of the leading party group, director of the Finance Office, director of the Office of the Financial Commission, secretary of the Financial Working Committee, and Chinese leader of China-US economic and trade cooperation, met in Beijing with US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Shang Bo and his entourage, who came to China to attend the third meeting of the China-US Economic Working Group.
The two-day meeting was the third since its establishment in September 2023 and the first at the beginning of 2024, with the first face-to-face talks held in Beijing, according to the global network. This shows that despite the rhetoric of China's economic decline, the United States is still optimistic about China's economic development, otherwise it would not have sent people to China frequently to discuss cooperation.
In addition, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has publicly expressed her desire to visit China again. Yellen has said she plans to visit China later in 2024 and claimed that the United States does not want to "decouple" from China and is working to establish "persistent lines of communication" so that issues can be dealt with in a timely manner.
Some analysts believe that the visit of the US Treasury delegation to China may also pave the way for Yellen's second trip to China. On the sidelines of the U.S.-China Economic Conference, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she hopes to visit China this year.
The Chinese side has always stressed that China has always adhered to the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, and is willing to cooperate with the United States to implement the consensus reached at the China-US summit in San Francisco, and jointly promote the sound and steady development of bilateral economic and trade relations. China believes that healthy and stable Sino-US economic and trade relations are beneficial to both countries and the world. But at the same time, China also hopes that the United States will match its words with deeds, and not pay lip service to cooperation while in fact impose frequent sanctions on Chinese companies.