When it comes to China it seems Americans are suffering from a severe inferiority complex.
According to a Gallup poll published last week, 40 per cent of Americans think China is the leading economic power in the world today, while only 33 per cent believe the United States is top economic dog.
This is a remarkable result - and not just because an astonishing 93 per cent of those polled failed correctly to identify the European Union as the world's biggest economy (see the chart below).
More extraordinary is that 40 per cent think China, with a gross domestic product of a little over US$3 trillion last year, punches with more economic might than the US, which with a GDP of US$14 trillion has more than three times the output.
The sense of relative US decline is startling. In May 2000, 65 per cent of Americans correctly identified their homeland as the world's leading economic power. Now few think the decline is reversible: 44 per cent think China will be the world's leading economy in 2020, while only 31 per cent think it will be the US.
This economic pessimism is completely misguided. If China continues to grow at an average 10 per cent a year and the US at close to 3 per cent, it will be 2030 before China catches up. Yuan appreciation would bring that date closer, but in reality Chinese growth will slow over time as productivity gains become harder to come by and demographics begin to work against rapid development.