Recently, There has been a lot of talk of China surpassing The U.S. as the largest economy in economic size and purchasing power. The US has been a strong economic influence in the world for the past decade. But the balance of power is shifting. China has been on the rise to becoming the World's largest economy. Many countries believe China has already exceeded or will exceed the U.S. as the leading superpower. 49 percent of the world believes China will replace the U.S. and 29 percent already believe China is the leading economic power (CH. 3). The U.S. has been the world's largest economy since 1871, but that title appears to be passed over to China soon. According to the World Bank estimates, China's gross domestic product, GDP, is now greater than the United States (Moffatt). The economic growth relates to growth in output of the economy as a whole, and is measured by GDP. As GDP is measured every year it is adjusted for real and adjusted terms like inflation. The growth leads to better standards of living, employment, productivity, and new technology. Based on purchasing power China has increase from 6 percent of global output to 15 percent last year, and global GDP from 2 percent to 12 percent. The U.S has been the world's largest economy with 22.4 percent nominal GDP and 16.6 percent of global GDP since 1871 (weisbrot). China is big and has changed greatly, but still has a far way to go. The U.S. status was gained through a great abundance of natural resources, strong infrastructure, and high productivity. The U.S. has become the world's largest manufacturer, and producer of natural gas and oil. It also makes up a fifth of the global manufacturing output and produces 40 percent of the world's total output of goods. In the past decade The U.S. has been the leading consumer of a large variety of important industrial goods. After World War Two The U.S. continued to be the strongest economy due to thriving business and government. Through increasing productivity the nation continued to see great economic growth and development. In this time, it allowed for businesses to grow, jobs to be created, and income to rise. At the same time government found areas to grow in as well. After this period of great economic expansion, The U.S. struggled with inflation, and foreign competition. Soon to follow military spending and increasing federal programs such as Medicaid became an issue, causing the federal budget deficit to grow. The U.S. after awhile focused on fixing areas such as, inflation and unemployment, which then allowed GDP to grow once again. At the start of the 21st century economic growth froze and with a GDP growth rate of only 0.3 percent, the whole world was affected causing the worldwide economy to decline. In 2008 the nation was in a crisis and caused employment and production to decline. The national debt soon jumped drastically to 14.3 trillion in 2010 and will continue to grow. As of 2014, China holds $1.26 trillion of U.S. debt (US vs China). The U.S has been a huge influential and superpower in the economic world. The U.S economy is struggling. Following the financial crises of 2007-08 and an unemployment rate of 12.2 percent, some have said the U.S. is on its way to economic failure. The U.S. has been driven by the idea of a free market. In the U.S. individual freedom and free enterprise is a common idea that people strive after. With individual freedom it incentivizes the people to be productive and work, providing freedom of businesses of goods and services. This system has caused the U.S. to be the most efficient economies, being driven by supply and demand. Individual freedom causes the people to be reliable and make good decisions for the good of the economy. The economy faces problems and struggles such as inflation, but remains to be the largest economy. However, China is growing and is growing through a different form of system. China has a long history and learned to sustain self-sufficiency a long time ago. However, through disorder, economic carelessness, and Japanese invasion destroyed China. In order for China to bounce back, China's new government tasked itself to restore its resources and sustainability. Around the 1950s China's government succeeded in curing the country's starvation along with controlling all production and distribution. China's economic development was sustained through imports and exports. China was strong in agriculture and through this was able to move toward industrialization. In 1978 China finally changed from a state control and centrally planned economy to a market based economy. The market reformation encouraged enterprises and private businesses, opened foreign trade and investment, relaxed state control, liberalization of prices, fiscal decentralized, diverse banking system, allowed investment, industrial production, and increase in education (Chin-economy). The reformation in these things has lead China to grow gradually and become w