Since the cold war era, the global economy has been highly driven by western capitalism, and the United States of America has been the vanguard of the hegemony and the power dynamics of the increasing globalization. Before the second world-war, Americans such as, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt etc had characterised the American value and work ethic, creating the path for the next generation entrepreneurs to achieve incremental innovation.
However, in recent periods, much has been said about the imminent rupture of the American hegemony and the Western Capitalism largely due to the daunting acceleration of China which has been leading development from the Eastern part of the world. Over the last two decades, China has been seen to continuously demonstrate grit and innovate toward changing the narrative.
According to a 2021 McKinsey report, the global wealth more than tripled in the year 2020 rising to $514trillion from $156trillion in 2000. Over the course of this period, China has significantly advanced its economic strength to displace the US from the top spot worldwide after many years in 2020. The report shows the national balance sheets of ten countries (i.e. USA, China, Germany, France, UK, Japan, Sweden, Mexico, Canada, and Australia) which represent more than 60 percent of the world’s economies were analysed, and China emerged as accounting for almost one-third of the gains in the global net worth over the last 20 years.
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‘’As net worth worldwide rose to $514trillion in 2020 from $156trillion in 2000, china wealth plunged to 120 trillion from 7 trillion in 2000 and the US experienced muted increase property prices but almost doubled its net worth to 90 trillion over the same period’’ McKinsey analysis as reported by Bloomberg reveals.
The report goes further to show that in the two biggest economies, USA and China, more than two-thirds of the wealth is concentrated in just 10 percent of the richest households
In another analysis, Yu Minhong, Chairman of New Oriental Education and Technology Group presents his view of the Chinese economic expansion which implies much of the great things that have been witnessed or said about China may represent only an insignificant achievement compared to what have yet to be discovered. According to him:
‘’…the upside is even greater. For the private sector in China only 10 percent of the potential has been tapped into. For thousands of years, businessmen were prevented from doing business. Now they are making up for the lost time with a vengeance, capitalizing on the size and quality of the workforce, China’s lower cost base and huge hunger for industrial consumption.’’