The world’s second-largest economy sometimes suffers from its own success: it’s hard to comprehend how big it really is. To help put things in perspective, this map, via Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao, compares China’s economy with East, Southeast, South, and Central Asia: a combined entity of 30 other countries labeled as “Rest of Asia”. Data is sourced from the UN and the IMF as of 2024. Countries from Western Asia (i.e. the Middle East) and Russia (which spans Europe and Asian continents) haven’t been included, and data was unavailable for North Korea. How China Stacks Up vs. Asian Economies With an $18 trillion economic output in 2024, China’s GDP is nearly $2 trillion larger than 30 economies combined: $16.5 trillion. That list of 30 countries includes other Asian heavyweights like: Japan ($4.1 trillion), India ($3.9 trillion), and South Korea ($1.87 trillion), the world’s 4th, 5th, and 12th largest economies. More than 2.9 billion people inhabit this bloc of countries, compared to China’s 1.4 billion residents. The per capita GDP reveals the imbalance in productivity: $12,870 for China versus $5,583 for the rest of Asia. Why the Chinese Economy Slowdown Matters Now that comprehending the size of China’s economy is somewhat more feasible, it makes more sense why the post-pandemic slowdown has rung alarm bells for economists around […]