China’s economy rising amid virus pandemic

TAIPEI, TAIWAN » A year ago, the coronavirus began spreading rapidly in China. Today, China’s economy is bouncing back hard, and expanding even faster than it did before the pandemic.

Economic data published Monday showed that China logged 2.3% growth for 2020, becoming the only major economy that grew during a year when the virus exacted a devastating global toll. As other major nations and geopolitical competitors, from the United States to Europe to India to Japan, struggle to beat back a winter wave, China’s containment success has buoyed its economy and the ruling Communist Party’s claims to global leadership in the post-pandemic world.

In a sign of how quickly China has managed a turnaround, the National Statistics Bureau said that its gross domestic product rose 6.5% during the fourth quarter of 2020, exceeding the 6% pace at the end of 2019, before the coronavirus took hold. China’s GDP surpassed a milestone in 2020, topping 100 trillion yuan, or about $15 trillion.

“In an extraordinary year, China’s economy was able to record an extraordinary accomplishment,” Ning Jizhe, head of the statistics bureau, told reporters. “It’s a performance that is satisfactory to the people, watched by the world, and can be recorded in the annals of history.”

China’s new GDP milestone, Ning added, reflected how “our country’s economic strength, science and technology strength, and overall national strength have jumped to a new level.”

As President-elect Biden enters office this week, he’ll be confronted with a China that does not seem diminished, at least superficially, in economic health or international stature. Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, recently struck a bullish tone during his New Year’s Eve address, when he declared he was “proud of his great motherland.”