For more than a century, the U.S. economy remained the central benchmark of global economic scale, while earlier industrial powers such as the U.K., Germany and Japan gradually declined in relative weight since 1900.

That balance has now shifted decisively toward Asia. China surpassed the U.S. economy in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)-adjusted terms in 2014 and reached 154% of the U.S. economy’s size by 2026, marking the first time in the modern era that another major economy exceeded the U.S. on this basis. India has also expanded rapidly, reaching 69% of U.S. scale by 2026 as demographic growth and rising productivity reinforced each other.

These trends point to a long-term redistribution of global economic weight toward Asia, led by China, with major implications for global trade, investment, industrial capacity and global demand patterns.