Continued Boom or Epic Bust

In a recent article, How China Ate America’s Lunch, Clif Carothers described what China has accomplished in the last thirty years:

In thirty short years, China was able to accelerate her GDP from $216 billion to $6 trillion. She amassed reserve capital of $3 trillion. She reversed America’s fortunes from the greatest creditor nation to the greatest debtor nation. She gutted America’s factories while creating the world’s largest manufacturing base in her own country. A measure of output that highly correlates to GDP is energy consumption. In June of this year, 2011, China surpassed the United States as the largest consumer of energy on the planet. While the U.S. consumes 19% of the world’s energy, China consumes 20.3%.

While China was growing their economy by a phenomenal 2,800%, the U.S. GDP grew from $2.3 trillion to $15 trillion – a mere 650% increase, of which 420% was due to inflation. There is no question that China’s progress has been remarkable. The question is whether that growth is sustainable and built upon a solid foundation.