The story of China's rise from the ashes to will-be global superpower is by now well known. By the 1970s, an economy that had dominated global trade for most of the previous two millennia was on its knees and as poor as a church mouse. China's nadir probably came in 1987, when it accounted for just 1.6 per cent of global trade, against an all-time high, in 1820, of 33 per cent. Yet just a few decades after it began to shed its ideological shackles, China seems ready to regain its mantle as the world's premier power. Already the world's leading exporter, it's on track to overtake the US as the largest economy (Bloomberg puts the date as 2028). It recently unveiled a long-term plan, 'Made in China 2025', that aims to comprehensively upgrade its manufacturing base. The 'Belt and Road' initiative aims to redraw the global trade map.
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