Comparing China and Japan by economy

China and Japan are among the world's top five largest national economies. As of 2025, China and Japan are the 2nd and 4th largest national economies in the world, respectively, on a nominal basis. On a PPP basis, China is at 1st, and Japan is at 5th place. Both countries share 20.21% and 22.86% of the total global wealth in nominal and PPP terms, respectively. Among Asian countries, China and Japan together contribute 56% in nominal and 46.6% in PPP of Asia's GDP.

In 1960, the GDP (nominal) of China was higher: thereafter, Japan took the lead until 2009. Japan was ahead of China until 1998 in PPP terms. In 2025, China's GDP of $19,399 billion is 4.68 times higher than $4,280 billion of Japan. On a PPP basis, the GDP of China (Int. $41,016 billion) is 6.28x that of Japan (Int. $6,758 billion). The ratio between these two was highest at 10.16x in 1993, in favor of Japan.

The per capita income of Japan is 2.47 and 1.42 times higher than that of China in nominal and PPP terms, respectively. The per capita rank of China and Japan is 78th and 40th, respectively, in nominal. The per capita rank of China and Japan is 79th and 42nd, respectively, in PPP.

With GDP growth of 4.8% in 2025, China is economically growing much faster than Japan's 1.08%. China's GDP growth rate has been higher than Japan's since 1991. China attained a maximum gdp growth rate of 19.30% in 1970 and a minimum of -27.27% in 1961. Japan reached an all-time high of 12.88% in 1968 and a record low of -5.69% in 2009. From 1961 to 2024, China grew by more than 10% in 22 years while Japan six times. GDP growth rate was negative in five years for China and eight years for Japan.