Half of a Story About China

The Chinese are getting richer. You can see that in this chart from The Economist:

The Chinese getting richer is a good thing that we should all be happy about. But this is not the same thing as China getting bigger or (economically) stronger.

Charts like this are very common. But an economics student ought to recognize a problem immediately: for a firm, that orange line is a cost. The firm only benefits if productivity has gone up just as fast. 

The source provided no information on this. The message for a student then is to stop, stall, and look for other information. Do not "jump at the bait" of looking at only one side of the issue.

BTW: Yeah, I spent many seconds looking for that information myself. The article in The Economist didn't have it (so they were doing the same dumb thing I just warned you about). And I could not find it at Haver Analytics either; but that doesn't mean that much since they are a consulting service academics and student can't afford to pay for, and they keep most stuff under lock and key.