By Xinhua
Beijing : China is expected to become the world’s second largest economy in terms of objective national strength by 2030, a top think tank reported Tuesday.
In its report “China’s Modernization 2008” released Monday, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said the country, currently number three globally in objective national strength, is expected to surpass Japan in 2030.
The report defines objective national strength as “the summation of real assets and objective capacity of an economy to maintain the survival and development of a nation”.
According to the CAS, China moved up to third place in objective national strength in 2004, behind only the US and Japan. In 1990, it was number 16.
China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has surged at a double-digit annual growth rate over the past five years and jumped 11.4 percent year-on-year to 24.66 trillion yuan ($3.43 trillion) in 2007. Analysts said last year’s figure was also the highest in the past 13 years.
The sharp increase in output brought the country closer to overtaking Germany, the world’s third largest economy.
In its report, CAS also proposed the new concept of “Peace Dove Strategy” to stress its peaceful development policy.