China Replacing Japan as World’s Second-Largest Economy

Figures released by the Japanese government indicate that China has replaced Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, after the United States, RFE/RL reports. 

The figures show that Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the second quarter of this year, seasonally unadjusted, totaled $1.28 trillion. That’s compared to $1.33 trillion for China.

Caution is needed in interpreting the figures, however, because they cover such a short period, only from April to June this year, when economic growth in Japan slowed to a miserable 0.4 percent. Taken over a longer period, for instance the first half of this year, Japan is still ahead. 

But with China’s growth proceeding at a breakneck pace — presently an estimated annualized rate of 10 percent — nobody really expects Japan to win back the laurels it gained as long ago as 1968, when it surpassed West Germany to become the world’s second-biggest economy.