World economy: From uni-polar to tri-polar.

(From Business Line)

Byline: around 2025, China's impact (in terms of GDP at prevailing exchange rates)

FOR OVER a century the US has been the largest economy in the world. Major shifts have, however, been under way since then.

During the last 30 years, the weight of the world economy has shifted from the US and the rich countries of Europe to China and India. These trends will continue in the 21st century, bringing about a historic transformation of the world economy.

The global economy will change from a uni-polar to a bi-polar one with the emergence of China. This will be followed a decade and a half later by the emergence of India, converting the world economy into a tri-polar one.

The rich countries of Europe have seen the greatest decline in global GDP share by 4.9 percentage points followed by the US and Japan, with a decline of about 1 percentage points each. Within Asia the declining …