CHINA ESQUIRE

CNN Money ran an article the other day with a title that made me want to read it: “You Have 7 Years to Learn Mandarin”. Oh really? Why so you might ask? My original thinking is because the Chinese business (and therefore legal) market would become too saturated with ex-pats and half-pats to break in. I was wrong. Instead, the article talks about a prediction that China will be the world’s economic superpower by… 2015. 2015? You got to be joking. But that’s what CNN is peddling to an unsuspecting public:

Back in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee chose Beijing as the site of this summer’s games, the event was meant to mark China’s debut as a player on the global economic stage. But a recent study by the economist Angus Maddison projects that China will become the world’s dominant economic superpower much sooner than expected - not in 2050, but in 2015.

While short-term investors are already cashing in on China’s growth by playing the global commodities boom, smart long-term thinkers are contemplating what happens when China matures from an exporter of cheap goods to a competitor in sectors where the U.S. is dominant - technology, brand building, finance. China has almost wiped U.S. makers of low-value items like toys and socks, but by 2015 it may threaten Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500), J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), and Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500). It will increasingly influence the S&P 500 and the mutual funds in our 401(k)s. So it’s worth looking at how that will happen, what it means, and what anyone can do in the seven years before the baton is passed.

Just using the exchange rate to convert China’s GDP into dollars isn’t helpful in comparing the two economies, because China controls its exchange rate; by that method, China’s economy might not pass America’s for decades. Exchange rates apply only to tradable products and services; they aren’t very useful in valuing nontradable goods in a country like China that is much poorer than the United States. So we need some way to compare the real value of China’s economic output with America’s, and economists have developed one. It is called purchasing power parity.

Angus Maddison’s forecast (which uses purchasing power parity) isn’t built on outlandish assumptions. He assumes China’s growth will slow way down year by year, and America’s will average about 2.6% annually, which seems reasonable. But because China has grown so stupendously during the past decade, it should still be able to take the crown in just seven more years.

If that happens, America will close out a 125-year run as the No. 1 economy. We assumed the title in 1890 from - guess who. Britain? France? No. The world’s largest economy until 1890 was China’s. That’s why Maddison says he expects China to “resume its natural role as the world’s largest economy by 2015.” That scenario makes sense.

China was the largest economy for centuries because everyone had the same type of economy - subsistence - and so the country with the most people would be economically biggest. Then the Industrial Revolution sent the West on a more prosperous path. Now the world is returning to a common economy, this time technology- and information-based, so once again population triumphs.

Where do I even begin? I think the 2015 number is built on a number that heavily favors anyone who wants to make grand declarations about China catching up quickly. In fact, last I remember, when Rich Brubaker at All Roads posted that China would catch up by 2028, we all took that number with quite a bit of skepticism. Sure, you can choose one particular figure to represent your claim? But this sort of economics… well, it seems more sensationalistic to me than realistic. Nor will it reflect reality. I doubt in 7 years that value-added industries, the service professions, will be ceded over to China. Hardly–that’s exactly what the U.S., EU, and other Asian Tigers will try to specialize in. So I think the 2015 stats were more shock value than anything else.

I also doubt that China have companies that can play along to the tune of Apple or JP Morgan. Or even Samsung. Not that China doesn’t have some successful companies, or some that have catchet like Lenovo. (okay, Lenovo didn’t have it… they bought it from IBM when they took over the Thinkpad series, which had serious cachet) The Chinese economy isn’t built on innovation and product advancement in the same way that other economies are. The educational system doesn’t embrace such thinking yet. So I doubt that we’ll see that. We will see SOE’s flexing their muscles more. I expect that. But I really don’t think a Chinese computer company will over take Apple in terms of computer and culture maker. Not by 2015.

The global economy is not a subsistence economy. It’s different. It’s more like a pyramid scheme in terms of value added industries. There is a reason why the west dominates in consulting still–because white collar professions, which are services and about “value”, have existed far longer there than in China. And it will be that pyramid for some time still, I am not saying that the Chinese services industry and other higher food chain type businesses won’t evolve. They will. They just won’t overtake the world by 2015.

I think that’s where the conclusion of the CNN Money article is going:

For companies: Focus on getting better at your highest-value activities. Just because the Chinese will be fighting you in the same industries doesn’t mean you’ll lose.

For individuals: You can avoid competition with Chinese workers by doing place-based work, which ranges in value from highly skilled (emergency-room surgery) to menial (pouring concrete). But the many people who do information-based work, which is most subject to competition, will have to get dramatically better to be worth what they cost.

I agree with the advice for companies. It’s a global food chain or pyramid more than a subsistence economy. I disagree slightly for individuals. Why? Because I don’t think information services will require that the west gets dramatically better. It just needs to stay a few steps ahead.

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