CHINA AND JAPAN

RISE OF CHINA NOT ALL BAD NEWS FOR JAPAN

More confirmation of China's economic ascendancy over Japan came this week in the form of GDP figures for the October-December quarter.

Rick Wallace

The Australian, February 17, 2011

A reduction of 0.3 per cent (or 1.1 per cent annualised) in Japan's gross domestic product was better than most economists expected, but it was still enough to see Japan deposed by China as the world's second-largest economy behind the US.

China had already nudged past Japan on a quarterly basis in the March-June quarter, but the October-December quarter marked the first time it has occurred on an annual basis since such things were first measured. Japan's economy is worth about $US5.5 trillion ($5.51 trillion), China's almost $US5.8 trillion.

It is an important milestone in China's remarkable rise from impoverished communist isolation to becoming an emerging global power.

Still, one GDP comparison doesn't tell the whole story.

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