Is US changing places with China?

China's modernization is changing the wealth and competitiveness of other countries. But some experts see China's economic growth as cumulative and accelerating.

Time magazine recently reported that Robert Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago, estimates that 30 years from now, China's GDP will increase to $123 trillion, because of its enormous investments in education and the increasing productivity of its people. It also commented on an advertisement by a United States conservative group, which shows a Chinese professor explaining to his students in 2030 how the US response to the great recession destroyed the once great nation, stating: "They work for us now."

Only 30 years ago, Deng Xiaoping opened China to the outside world for foreign trade and investment. His policies remain the basis for China's unexpectedly rapid economic modernization. Such has been the pace of China's development that its GDP has increased tenfold since 1978, according to the CIA Fact Book.