China today is an economic giant deeply embedded in global trade and production. In 2006, China’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded two and one-half trillion . dollars, larger than that of France and approaching that of Germany. Calibrated in the metric used by the World Bank to capture comparable real standards of living, China’s GDP in 2006 reached trillion purchasing power parity (PPP) dollars, thereby placing its economy second in the world only after the United .
