If you measure by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) rather than dollars China’s economy is by far the largest in the world, surpassing the USA completely.
It has managed to go from utter poverty and destruction during the “Long WW2”, starting with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1934, to eclipsing the most “advanced” countries in the world. How could that happen? Especially as it suffered such huge destruction and loss of life – some estimates put it at 30 million dead?
One of the factors is the cohesive Chinese sense of purpose, led by their meritocratic civil service: governance by the best, which is over 2000 years old. Entry by competitive exam, open to all, dates back to 834 CE. When Britain was in the dark ages and writing was a rare skill usually only practiced by monks.
Godfree Roberts says, “Next week China’s smartest 3.4 million university graduates, average IQ 114, will take the three-day guokao, the national civil service exam, competing for 39,700 jobs. Their IQ puts them in the top 15–20 % of the entire population and among them 40,000 have genius level IQs above 140. At the extreme right end of the curve, 650 of them will have super-genius 160 IQs, compared to just 220 such age mates in the US and EU combined.”
This use of brainpower super-charges the Chinese system, enabling it to outperform any other society. Western governments have nothing remotely comparable.
China has also spent its money on infrastructure and development: roads, ports, factories, bridges, rather than armaments, and it shows: shiny new cities with a massive network of extraordinary high speed trains.