In 2012, the Gillard government declared that the 21st century would be the “Asian Century”, and produced a White Paper detailing its expectations for how things would play out, entitled “Australia in the Asian Century”.
It included expectations such as a baseline scenario predicting China would grow at 7% each year from 2012 to 2025, with even the downside scenario anticipating a still extremely robust growth rate of 6.5%.
In reality, just 15 months after the release of the Gillard government’s White Paper, China recorded 7% growth for a calendar year for the final time.
