They have massively increased in the last decade, according to this competitiveness scorecard which seems to be pretty prominent. They spent 1997-2001 ranked in the 30s, but in 2006 they ranked 19th in the world in 2006 (after rising from 31st in 2005).

Maybe it's a fluke, I don't know how the rankings are set. Based on the past years and this year, China would be roughly considered in the same "bracket" as Belgium, Scotland, Thailand, Korea, Chile.

Luxembourg is in 4th place. Which parameters are they using?? Clean air, use of toiletpaper?

Luxembourg is in 9th place, Iceland is 4th.

They are ranking the economies from the most to the least competitive, which rate a country on how efficient and sucessful the country is in business. How well their citizens should be able to maintain a good standard of living. That doesn't mean they could become a world power. That requires more than this rating covers. :cool:

China may have its... shortcomings, but it sure as hell has a competitive economy, for all their bluster about the CCP.

Let's give UT's Ralph Peters link a bit of testing -- I not only got a "Firefox couldn't find" but no URL shown in the browser window at all. Will it (the link and the site) come up later?

fixed

Thanx, tanx, cranx... Manx. ;)