Not many people in Japan are convinced that China has truly become an economic giant even though Beijing has released impressive statistics on the country's economic growth, accumulation of foreign exchange reserves, rising automobile sales and aggregate stock market value.
In the first quarter of this year, China's real gross domestic product grew an impressive 11.9 percent over the same period the year before, showing amazing strength compared with the GDP growth of industrialized economies limping along in the global recession. However, 6.9 percentage points of the growth rate came about through investments from government and state-owned enterprises, and 6.2 percent was from personal consumption, which is the primary driving force in advanced nations. Exports contributed minus 1.2 percentage points.
One question is whether the investments will be effective in bringing about economic prosperity. For example: