Back to Gideon RachmanEarlier this year Goldman Sachs caused a stir when they predicted that China would have a larger economy than America by 2027. But this week China overtook America in one area that is of particular interest to the likes of Goldman Sachs. PetroChina became the most valuable company in the world. After its stockmarket debut in Shanghai the firm is now valued at over $1 trillion - slightly more than double the value of the world’s second biggest company, ExxonMobil.
PetroChina is no anomaly. Three of the five most valuable companies in the world are now Chinese - China Mobile and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) are the other two. If you take the top 10 companies as your preferred measure, it is four-all between China and America. Sinopec is China’s other entry. The US has Exxon, GE, Altria and Microsoft.
There is an argument that this tells you more about a bubble in the Chinese stock market than about shifts in global economic power. It could just be the equivalent of the moment when the Japanese property bubble grew so extreme that the grounds of the Royal Palace in Tokyo were deemed to be more valuable than the entire state of California. (I always wondered how people worked that out, but you heard it said a lot at the time.)
The bubble argument has something to it. PetroChina’s shares shot up partly because there is huge demand and only 2.2% of the company was floated. As the FT’s Geoff Dyer pointed out earlier this week, it is now trading at 54 times earnings, compared to an industry average of 18 times earnings. But the valuation of other huge Chinese companies - like China Mobile - is much closer to an accurate reflection of the size of the market.
Maybe the PetroChina float will one day seem like a historic curiousity. But in the week in which the dollar sank to new lows against the euro, it certainly feels like something is shifting.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention. I joined the FT as chief foreign affairs commentator in 2006, after a 15-year career at The Economist which included stints as a correspondent in Brussels, Bangkok and Washington. I write a weekly column on foreign affairs, which appears in the paper on Tuesdays. Occasionally my FT colleagues contribute posts to this blog.
Geoff Dyer is the FT's China bureau chief. He has been a correspondent in Shanghai and in Brazil and has also covered the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries from London.
Roula Khalaf is the FT's Middle East editor. She has worked for the FT since 1995, first as North Africa correspondent, then Middle East correspondent and most recently as Middle East editor. Before joining the FT, she was a staff writer for Forbes magazine in New York. 
James Blitz is the FT's defence and diplomatic editor. He has been the FT's political editor, based in London, and Rome bureau chief. James is a former Moscow bureau chief for the Sunday Times.
Alan Beattie is the FT's world trade editor. He has previously been economics leader writer and spent two years in Washington DC as chief US economics correspondent. Before joining the FT, Alan was an economist at the Bank of England. 
Victor Mallet is the FT's Madrid correspondent. He is a former Asia editor of the FT, and, in more than 20 years at the organisation, has also worked in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. In 1990 he escaped from Kuwait after being one of the few foreign correspondents there when Iraq invaded. 
Stefan Wagstyl is the FT's eastern Europe editor, co-ordinating coverage of the region. He has also been the FT's bureau chief in Tokyo and New Delhi.
