Standard predictions have stated that in a little over 4 years, China would overcome the United States as the world’s largest economy.

Those predictions were wrong:

China, it turns out, isn’t a $10-trillion economy on the brink of catching up with the United States. It is a $6-trillion economy, less than half our size. For the foreseeable future, China will have far less money to spend on its military and will face much deeper social and economic problems at home than experts previously believed.

What all of this means is that the United States will remain unchallenged as the world’s top economy for years and years and years to come. There is no threat whatsoever that the Chinese will surpass us and as Walter Russell Mead, the author of the article, points out, a less prosperous China also means a China that has less money to spend on defense, so even there, we are going to be just fine.

But this also means that China is a lot poorer than we thought, which does not bode well for American exports overseas. The world, as a whole, is a lot poorer also, as Mead writes. In calibrating policy, the fact that China’s economy is 40% smaller than ours would tend to reinforce my

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