With a natural resources to people ratio like that, can the average Chinese citizen become rich on a per capita basis?
The way I see it, there are two kinds of economies in the world: the extraction economy that makes its living out of its natural resource endowment. The Gulf petro-monarchies are the purest example of this kind of economy. In this case, the fewer people, the better since adding more people doesn't add to the resource pool.
The second kind of economy is the technological economy that makes its living out of innovating and developing advanced technology. Japan and South Korea are archetypal examples of this type of economy. Resources permitting, the more people this type of economy has, the wealthier it becomes since its primary resource is educated, productive people.
Of course, every economy is a mix of the two.
Japan is an instructive case because it's far more resource-constrained than China yet still became an advanced economy. It's PPP adjusted per capita GDP is around $45,500, which is right around the OECD average and compares favourably to the US's $65,000. There's no reason to believe China can't get from its current 33% of US per capita GDP (PPP adjusted) to 70% like Japan.
The great thing about China being a technological economy is that over the long term the biggest and strongest of these economies define what counts as a resource. Whale fat and horses were once
the commodities in what passed for the world economy. What are those things worth now? In the decades to come, China's advancements in technologies like electric transportation and advanced nuclear power and renewables will do the same to oil, to take one example.
To conclude, I don't think every Chinese citizen will have a McMansion with a Garage Mahal, but he'll live a first-world life surrounded by the most advanced technology in the world. And China itself will be far,
far more powerful than America.
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