US should pivot away from containment

Joseph Stiglitz, one of the world's most influential economists today, sounded stern warnings to US policy and lawmakers in his article "China Century" in the January edition of Vanity Fair magazine.

The Nobel laureate in economics described 2014 as the last year in which the United States could claim to be the world's largest economic power. "China enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history," he wrote.

Such a conclusion is based on a recent International Monetary Fund report which said, when measuring national economic output in real terms of goods and services, China will produce $17.6 trillion this year, above the $17.4 trillion for the US.