The World Bank has recently ranked China's GDP fourth largest in the world, a little higher than Britain.

According to World Bank statistics, China's GDP in 2005 reached US$2.263825 trillion, US$94 million more than that of Great Britain, thereby becoming the fourth largest economic entity in the world.

"To surpass Britain and catch up with the US" has been the dream of Chinese people for years. Now that China has surpassed Britain in terms of GDP, has China has realized its dream by half? An article published in Global Times raised this question and explored the answer.

While we are happy about the progress, the answer seems to be negative in terms of per capita GDP.

It's estimated that if ranked in terms of GDP per capita, China would place around the 100 mark among the nearly 200 economic entities in the world.

China's GDP has been a topic of interest to many people. At the end of last year, the National Statistics Bureau corrected its 2004 GDP and found that China's GDP had surpassed Italy and become the sixth largest economic entity. This finding aroused heated discussion in the media and between scholars.

China's chief of statistics, Li Deshui, said that China's economy was still some way off from those of Britain and France, but that the gap would get smaller and smaller.

An Indian newspaper article hailed the World Bank ranking as a good thing for China because it shows that China's economy is healthier, more diverse and sustainable than people expected.

A US Diplomacy magazine also published an article saying China's GDP growth had surpassed any other Asian country and that China's potential for development is still huge because its per capita GDP is only 5 percent of that of people in the US. China's rapid growth is now more probable than South Korea's forty years ago owing to the development of new technology.

An article in the British Economist pointed out that since 1978, China's GDP has grown at a rate of 9.5 percent every year, three times higher than that of the US and faster than any other economic entity. Now that the "giant dragon is really waking", China may become the number one economic power, toppling the US.

The figures didn't surprise Chinese researchers. Su Jingxiang from the Chinese Modern International Relations Institute said it is not adequate to use only GDP when calculating the economic scale. In fact, he believes that the World Bank underestimates the size of the Chinese economy as they use foreign exchange to calculate it. He didn't think it surprising that China's economy has surpassed Britain's. He thinks that China's economy still has a long way to go before it catches up with Britain and other developed countries, and China should stay sober-minded and be aware of the big potential for further development.

Zheng Qiuxuan, from the Korean Samsung Economic Research Institute said that GDP per capita for Chinese is not very big, as China has 1.3 billion people. The more important thing is that the Chinese people are living happily.

A Russian expert in China's economy at the Russian Far East Research Institute said that although China's total GDP is big, GDP per capita is still small. So the ��China Threat' rhetoric isn't even worth mentioning.

"Chinese products can be seen all over the world; it creates competition, but doesn't constitute a threat."

Dr. Qiao Weiguo from the World Economic and Politics Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences pointed out that if GDP is the sole measure of economic strength, it is easy to neglect the economic structure and other issues behind it

. "There are still vast poor rural areas in China and there is a large economic divide between city and country dwellers. China has also accumulated many deep contradictions in banking, population and employment. The government's debt, the gap between the rich and the poor, the lack of social security and the resource and environment bottleneck are all uncertain factors in future development. China should have a clear mindset and avoid exaggerating its economic strength as well as being dubbed as a ��threat'."

By People's Daily Online