Xi Jinping has promised a “Chinese Dream” of national rejuvenation, greater prosperity and a powerful, modern China by midcentury. Yet the CCP’s presentation of living standards obscures how far ordinary Chinese remain from American prosperity.
Housing figures include shared building areas, headline unemployment statistics omit rural joblessness, and Beijing suspended youth unemployment reporting before introducing a revised measure that excludes students. These practices can make progress toward Xi’s promise appear greater than the underlying conditions justify.
This year, U.S. nominal GDP per capita is projected to reach $94,430, more than six times China’s projected $14,870. Assuming annual growth in nominal dollar GDP per capita of 5% in China and 2% in the United States, China would need about 64 years to catch up, let alone surpass the United States.
In the meantime, the Chinese Communist Party needs people to believe they are becoming rich. Housing statistics help create that impression: official figures suggest the average American home is only 54% larger than its Chinese counterpart, at 1,845 square feet versus 1,197 square feet.
But these figures seem counterintuitive when the vast majority of people in China live in one- or two-bedroom apartments, while about 62% of U.S. households live in freestanding, single-family houses, which might be four or more times the size of the average Chinese home.
The CCP creates this impression by measuring homes differently than the United States does. China reports housing size in gross building area, which includes each unit’s share of hallways, stairwells, elevator shafts, and lobbies, while U.S. figures count only the space inside the home. Shared areas typically account for 15% to 25% of a Chinese apartment’s listed size and can reach 30% or more.
According to People’s Daily, urban residents had 36.6 m² of building area per person in 2017 but only 25.7 m² of indoor space, meaning about 30% of the reported area was not living space.
