Will the United States be number three in the new world order?
In his forthcoming book, "America as No.3," former journalist Hugh Peyman argues that it will: China’s economy has already surpassed that of the U.S. by some measures and India’s will do the same by mid-century. He also argues that “the Rest” more broadly will pose a growing challenge to the West, which in turn continues to underestimate the challengers.
Peyman is hardly the first to predict the rise of countries that are not included in the geopolitical West (a group that includes Japan). The British economist Angus Maddison knew back in 2007 that China’s gross domestic product would soon overtake that of the U.S. (in purchasing-power-parity terms at constant 1990 U.S. dollar prices), with India at number three. And the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development estimates that India will overtake the U.S. in GDP by 2050, and that, by 2060, the combined GDP of China, India and Indonesia will equal $116.7 trillion — 49% of GDP — making it three times larger than the U.S. economy.