“[China] has over four times as many people as America, and so its output per capita only needs to be about a fourth of America’s to match it in total size. … So even if China never becomes as productive as western Europe or South Korea, to say nothing of America, it will have the world’s largest economy by a healthy margin (until, that is, India catches up). And that means that China will have enormous influence in the world—will be an agenda setter—and will, in some ways, be able to marshal more real resources than America. Within Asia, China’s influence will dwarf that of America. Power inevitably follows economic might, and China will soon be the mightiest.”
— From The Economist, “How to gracefully step aside,” Jan 10th 2011.