According to figures released by the International Monetary Fund, China in 2010 reached nominal GDP equal to 5,475 billion U.S. dollars, making in this way the historic overtaking on the near Japan, where nominal GDP would amount to 5,390 billion U.S. dollars. The process of economic and political power shift in Asia from Japan to China, even since the end of the Nineties, has been a sudden acceleration in more recent times, for reasons related both to domestic issues in the Japanese country, and to other ones discernible in China's extraordinary ability to foresee the scenarios triggered by the global financial crisis erupted in 2008 in a potential to exploit to its advantage. The crisis has also affected the Dragon, impacting negatively on the level of exports; however, it revealed the vision of a country, with a debt far more limited than that one of industrialized countries, that has been able to identify its own economic and strategic priorities, paying particular attention to the important levers of foreign policy.

China has, in this sense, concentrating its efforts to win the role of privileged interlocutor of the countries in the developing world, landing areas for the wealth of raw materials and energy sources, and has also committed to expanding markets for its exports. In this regard, important agreements have been concluded with foreign exchange trading in developing countries, which could be lucrative markets in the years to come. Many people agree, however, that the key to success for China's future economy will be devoted to processing export economy mainly to the domestic market. China comes, therefore, the second highest among the major economies of the world, trailing only the United States (2010 nominal GDP amounted to 14,624 billion U.S. dollars). The primacy of the U.S., however, does not seem affected, at least in the short term: in absolute terms the gap between gross domestic product in both countries is, in fact, still significant today. Washington seems more concerned about the impact that a possible crisis in the Chinese economy, too dependent on exports, could have on the balance of economic and political world.