Authors: Yuhan Zhang and Lin Shi, Columbia University

Despite several years of solid growth in China’s domestic household consumption, as a share of GDP this sector has declined from around 55 per cent in the early 1980s to around 34 per cent in early 2011.

China’s 12th Five-Year Plan clearly indicates that increased domestic consumption is a major economic restructuring target, and key to achieving this goal will be reforms within the financial sector and policy on healthcare and the environment. Read more…

Author: Yuhan Zhang, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Lin Shi, Columbia University

Paul Kennedy was probably right: the US will go the way of all great powers — down. The individual dramas of the past decade — the September 2001 terrorist attacks, prolonged wars in the Middle East and the financial crisis — have delivered the world a message: US primacy is in decline.

This does not necessarily mean that the US is in systemic decline, but it encompasses a trend that appears to be negative and perhaps alarming. Although the US still possesses incomparable military prowess and its economy remains the world’s largest, the once seemingly indomitable chasm that separated America from anyone else is narrowing. Read more…