Debate on largest economy pointless

Even China's top leadership has repeatedly said that one of the main goals of economic development is to make China a moderately well-off (or xiao kang) society. This is a very reasonable and reachable goal, a far cry from the over-optimistic and counter-productive slogans and policies adopted at the end of the 1950s.

Still, China has become a world power, a direct result of its huge population that magnifies every statistics 1.3 billion times. One figure representative of the last 35 years of reforms is the amount of foreign exchange reserves ($3.88 trillion in October 2014). To put this in proper perspective, when Deng Xiaoping visited the US in 1979, the Chinese government is said to have just enough foreign exchange reserves to pay for his and the accompanying delegation's travel costs.

But unlike other achievements that China has boasted of in the past, the roles are inverted this time around. It is the West that continually talks about China becoming the largest economy in the world, while the Chinese leadership keeps playing down the issue. The leadership's main worries are different: the low per capita income, the still large rural population, low average schooling level, massive environmental damage, corruption, interest groups, insufficient truly innovative industries - with some exceptions - and the holy grail of how to stimulate domestic consumption.

Furthermore, the label of a "world power" comes with international responsibilities, such as cutting carbon emissions, playing more active roles in resolving issues in the Middle East and Africa, fighting terrorism, helping rescue the ailing European Union economy and maintaining an amiable atmosphere in the neighborhood. These are things that create more problems than solutions. With all these, and many more, issues on the plate, it is not surprising that the debate of which country is really the largest economy in the world does not and cannot occupy the minds of the Chinese people.

The author is head of China Economic Policy Program at Nottingham University Business School, China, and at the Global Policy Institute, London.