China: Economic Growth and China Essay

Submitted By hellomotoacct
Words: 333
Pages: 2

China has become one of the fastest growing economies over the past forty years. The unforeseen economic growth in Southeast and East Asia, known as the “Asian Miracle” come upon the world as a surprise, and many wrote it off as being a “fluke” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w14967.pdf?new_window=1); however, looking at rise of the Chinese economy, statistics show otherwise. When economic reform began in 1978, China’s GDP was 362.4 billion yuan, and by 2008 this number rose to a staggering 30 trillion yuan (http://www.chinability.com/GDP.htm). As a result, China has maintained an average annual economic growth of approximately 9.9% (http://bb.china-embassy.org/eng/xwdt/t976363.htm) since the late 1970s, making it the second largest economy today. The issue at hand for China is no longer how to achieve economic growth, as this goal has clearly been established in a short span of no more than 30-40 years. The problem now is how to sustain this growth and deal with its consequences (http://business.time.com/2012/07/26/chinas-economic-slowdown-why-stimulus-is-a-bad-idea/). Although the declining global economy has not had as great of a negative impact on China, China still faces a great deal of economic challenges, all of which have lead to the projected decrease in China’s growth in 2012 to 8%, making this China’s worse economic performance since 1999 (http://business.time.com/2012/07/26/chinas-economic-slowdown-why-stimulus-is-a-bad-idea/). China’s primary economic