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Back in July 2013, the think tank Heritage Foundation predicted that China's outbound investment "could very well exceed $80 billion [by the end of the year] and is on course to breach $100 billion by about 2016."
With all due respect to the Heritage Foundation, China just beat the forecast by a couple of years, exceeding the $100 billion mark at the end of 2014. For the first time, in fact, China invested more capital outside its own borders than it did inside. As legendary Major League Baseball player and coach Yogi Berra once quipped: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
Be that as it may, it's now estimated that within the next decade, China will have invested a staggering $1.25 trillion into the global market.
It was once said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. Now the same might be said of China's growing influence around the world.
"As China's domestic infrastructure expansion matures and the yuan's purchasing power rises, Chinese companies are seeking overseas opportunities so they're not pigeonholed in any one marketplace," says Xian Liang, portfolio manager of our China Region Fund (USCOX).
When you consider world economies using purchasing-power parity, China's actually surpassed America's in the second half last year.
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One of the most headline-worthy developments is China's $16.3-billion infrastructure initiative intended to revive trading routes along the centuries-old Silk Road. Thousands of miles of railways, roads and pipelines will link Beijing to major markets all over Asia, Africa and Europe.
Many are already likening the new Silk Road undertaking to the Marshall Plan, the large-scale U.S. program that aided Europe following World War II and helped secure America's role as the world's leading superpower.
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