More Americans believe that China is the world’s leading economic power, not the United States, according to a Gallup poll.
Fifty percent of Americans believe that China has the top economy, while 37 percent of Americans say the United States is number one. Those percentages shift when asking about the economy in 20 years. Thirty-four percent say China will be number one, and 44 percent say America will be number one.
"In 2000, when the U.S. economy was booming, nearly two-thirds of Americans saw their own country as the leading global economic power," states the report. "However, by the next time Gallup asked about this—in February 2008, as the U.S. was in a recession and China’s economy was growing at nearly 10 percent annually—China had edged ahead of the U.S., 40 percent vs. 33 percent, and Japan had slipped to third."
The report finds that both Republicans and Democrats are more optimistic about America’s economic outlook. "Gallup now finds more Americans predicting that the U.S. rather than China will be the world’s leading economic power in 20 years," the report explains.
"Whether China or the U.S. is the larger economic power is not entirely straightforward," states Gallup. "On the basis of raw GDP, the U.S. is still larger, but when accounting for prices and consumer purchasing power, the International Monetary Fund recently declared China biggest."
"Regardless, China’s rapid economic growth over the past decade or more, along with the United States’ economic struggles, likely contributed to Americans’ perceptions that China had overtaken the U.S."