I noted a Global Times editorial today sought to play down two forecasts of China's economy becoming the world's largest by 2028. The content of the articles did not seek to deny this, but certainly sought to place breaks any kind of triumphalism that might arise from it.

The pieces state that overemphasizing such forecasts, even should they be correct, brings risks for China because it will only result in an exacerbation of anti-China sentiment within the US and subsequent attempts to block that from happening. Thus they don't want to focus on it

In Beijing's view, the United States is doing anything it can to try and contain China's rise and stop it from overtaking America. Therefore, shouting from the rooftops that China's economy will become the world's largest by 2028 is an inherently bad idea, and complacent.

For example, look at the responses on twitter to articles from the BBC, Sky News, Reuters and Bloomberg all reporting this forecast, a near universal response was that "they deliberately planned the virus to achieve this" and "make them pay for it".

China is not of course responsible for the incompetence of western countries, but the rapid economic recovery of China combined with the west's slump has created a huge sense of bitterness from those brainwashed by the mainstream media and politicians.

It appears China's return to rapid growth has not made the western public question the competence of their own countries in comparison, but in fact served to exacerbate anti-China sentiment even further by fuelling resentment. Nigel Farage's tweets should be a case study of this.

The precise reason why the mainstream media put these studies about China's economy on a megaphone was not to praise Beijing for having overcome the virus and returned to growth, but to raise the stakes and intensify geopolitical competition against it.