Daily Archives: November 16, 2010

I am writing this in Xi’an, ancient capital of the Chinese empire. This is where the famous terracotta warriors were found, mute witnesses to the scale, resources and organising capacity of the ancient Chinese state. Xi’an is a city of 8m, in the middle of the country. The road from the airport is surrounded with half-finished buildings, a sign of the construction boom of recent years. The economic changes are palpable, as they are elsewhere in this vast country.

China is a nascent superpower. According to the wonderful database published by the Conference Board, its gross domestic product, at purchasing power parity, was 80 per cent of that of the US in 2009. Its GDP per head has risen from a mere 3 per cent of US levels in 1978 to close to 20 per cent in 2009.

Martin Wolf Exchange

Economic issues

About this blog About Martin Blog guide
On this blog, I will open the discussion of a topic that I am thinking about. My aim will be to elicit views of readers. I will give my own response to the question I have raised, before posting the next issue for discussion.

Martin aims to publish a post twice a week.
Martin Wolf is chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 “for services to financial journalism”. Mr Wolf is an honorary fellow of Nuffield College and of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is also an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos since 1999 and a member of its International Media Council since 2006.

Martin was made a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Nottingham University in July 2006 and a Doctor of Science (Economics) of London University, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in December 2006. He was joint winner of the 2009 award for columns in “giant newspapers” at the 15th annual Best in Business Journalism competition of The Society of American Business Editors and Writers and won the 32nd Ischia International Journalism Prize in 2012. Martin's most recent publications are Why Globalization Works and Fixing Global Finance.
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