Fact check: Duterte says China is 'No. 1 economic powerhouse'

MANILA, Philippines — "The number one economic powerhouse."

This was how President Rodrigo Duterte described China as he stressed the importance of forging closer ties with the Asian power amid tension over the South China Sea — control of which is at the heart of a maritime dispute between Beijing and Manila.

"We have to be friends. There's a... the other hotheads who would like us to confront China and the rest of the world for so many issues. The South China Sea is better left untouched," Duterte said in his speech on Sunday.

The topic of whether China has already emerged as the world's most powerful country has been widely debated by foreign relations experts for years.

But according to World Bank data, the US, which accounted for over 24 percent of the world's gross domestic product in 2016, has been the world's biggest economy.

The US is also among the "advanced" economies listed by the International Monetary Fund. Meanwhile, IMF classified China as among the "emerging and developing" countries in Asia.

The main criteria used by the IMF to classify nations into advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies are per capita income level, export diversification, and degree of integration into the global financial system.

But recently, both the IMF and World Bank qualified that China has overtaken the US in terms of GDP based on purchasing power parity, which is one measure of total economic strength, the World Economic Forum reported.

PPP adjusts countries' GDPs for differences in prices.

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"In simple terms, this means that because your money stretches further in China than it would in the US, China's GDP is adjusted upwards," WEF said.

"And it won't be too long before China's economy surpasses the US's by other measures, too. The Centre for Economics and Business Research predicts it will happen in 2029," it added.

Image from World Bank via WEF

"Despite the recent slowdown, China's economy is still growing at almost three times the rate of the US—around 7 percent over the last couple of years, compared to less than 2.5 percent," it also said.

"However, in order to surpass the US's highly diversified, tertiary economy, there's more to do: China still needs to make the all-important transition from a resource-intensive manufacturing hub to a modern, consumer-driven economy."