Forget the "Ground Zero mosque," Michelle Obama's Spanish holiday and even the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. When future historians look back to the summer of 2010, the event they are most likely to focus on is China's emergence as the world's second-largest economy.
Mostly, this is a very good thing. The rise of China, and the related,
albeit slightly slower, emergence of India, is the story of hundreds of
millions of very poor people joining the global economy and getting a
little richer. Gross domestic product per capita in those two countries
was basically stagnant from 1820 to 1950. Then, it increased 68 percent
from 1950 to 1973, and a whopping 245 percent from 1973 to 2002.
But we need to be careful not to draw the wrong lessons from China's
resurrection. The most dangerous one is that authoritarianism works.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Chrystia Freeland - China's economic model isn't the answer for the U.S.
Author: Chrystia Freeland
