2022 was not a good year for the Chinese economy. In 2022, the COVID-19 epidemic, which started in December 2019, caused significant economic disruptions in the second quarter, especially in Shanghai, resulting in a real rate of growth for the Mainland economy of only 3.0% for the year as a whole. This is the second lowest annual rate since economic reform and opening began in 1978.

Despite a slowing of global economic tailwinds, China is expected to see 4.7 percent growth next year for many reasons, including domestic consumption. Government spending will expand, and private investment will be encouraged. All in all, China will gradually see a return to economic boom times.

In its pursuit for unipolar primacy, the Biden administration is risking the economic stability of China, the West, emerging Asia, and the futures of the Global South.

In early March, Premier Li Keqiang announced that China is targeting GDP growth of “about 5.5%” this year. That would be ambitious even without Russia’s war against Ukraine and the attendant increases in global energy and food prices. Back in January, for example, the International Monetary Fund forecast that the Chinese economy would grow by only 4.8% in 2022. And in 2019, the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic, GDP increased by just under 6%.

Growth of 5.5 percent growth is possible and consistent with the country’s economic expansion in recent years. One key path forward is the digital economy. Green development will help define China’s high-quality economic future.

Recent price increases in the world’s two largest economies have unnerved global markets, which have become accustomed to the low inflation – and even deflation – that has prevailed for decades. But, at least in China, a little inflation would not be a bad thing.

Economic reporting about China focuses far too much on total GDP and not enough on per capita GDP, which is the more revealing indicator. And this skewed coverage has important implications, because the two indicators paint significantly different pictures of China’s current economic and political situation. They also focus our attention on different issues.

The strengthening of the economy also means growing attractiveness for global investors. During the first quarter of 2021, FDI inflows to China accelerated tremendously, and there are good opportunities for U.S. investors, with no chance to lose.

China’s position in the global markets as a source of cheap labor has evolved into a dynamic new phase, that requires new solutions to bridge China’s past with its promising future.

A great deal of interest is focussed on the level of Chinese real GDP in 2020. The Chinese GDP in 2020 depends crucially on two developments—the speed of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic and the availability of additional economic stimulus.