A reader sent us this chart from the Financial Times showing China’s pace of catching up economically with the U.S. The dotted lines show over the past 25 years the trend lines of when China reaches the U.S. in total output. Remember, China has three times as many people as we do.

What you will notice is that after China dumped Mao’s communism and went all in for capitalism in the 1990s, their growth rate and stock market exploded. The Chinese were expected to have exceeded our GDP by now. Then President Xi took over, reinstated strict Communist rule, and their growth has mostly flattened ever since.

Now China isn’t expected to overtake American economic preeminence until closer to 2050.  That’s the sclerotic curse of slow growth from communism/socialism.