Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Who Is the World's Biggest Economic Power?

What nation dominates the world economically? If you ask Americans, the answer you're likely to get, by a surprisingly wide margin, is China. According to a Gallup poll conducted last week, 53 percent of all respondents described China as the leading economic power in the world today, with only 33 percent naming the U.S. Trailing far behind was Japan, named by 7 percent, followed by the European Union (3 percent) and India (2 percent).

Those numbers are largely unchanged from last year, but as recently as 2009, the same survey found China and the U.S. nearly dead-even, at 39 percent and 37 percent, respectively. Back in 2000, Japan actually finished ahead of China in this survey.

It's worth pointing out that, by most measures, the United States is still the leading economic power in the world. The CIA's World Factbook estimates America's 2011 GDP at just over $15 trillion, and China's at $11.3 trillion. Per capita, the difference is even wider, with China's GDP at $8,400, nowhere near the U.S. rate of $48,100 per person.

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