Electricity generation has tripled in China over the past decade, overtaking the European Union in 2008 to become the world’s second biggest generator of electricity after the United States. Of course, per capita usage rates of electricity are still much lower in China but they will rise with incomes. In 1999, just over 23,000 Chinese postgraduate students were studying abroad.
A decade later, there were 230,000. All of these metrics tell a similar story: the rise in the importance of the Chinese economy is extraordinary. Other countries in the Asian region have also shown solid rates of growth over this period, but the size and pace of change in the Chinese economy stands out.