Chinese companies have surpassed American ones in terms of wealth, as witnessed by the Fortune Global 500 where China has more firms on the list than the U.S. does.
“New Fortune 500 biggest global firms issue: Chinese firms (145 out of 500) vs U.S. firms (124 out of 500). Total Chinese big firms' revenues now larger than total U.S. big firms' revenues,” Richard D. Wolff, the host of Economic Update, a weekly nationally syndicated podcast program, said on Twitter. "These facts matter far more than Pelosi photo-ops in Taiwan.”
The Fortune Global 500 annually measures and ranks the 500 largest corporations in the world using their total revenue whereas the Fortune 500 does this but only for American-based corporations.
Since 2020, China has led all countries with the largest number of companies on the Fortune Global 500, the Center for Strategic and International Studies reported.
The majority of the Chinese firms on the Fortune Global 500 list are gigantic state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Of the 136 firms China has on the Fortune Global 500, nearly 50 of them are considered central SOEs, meaning they are under the direct command authority of the Chinese Communist Party's national government.
The Chinese president has stated on multiple occasions that SOEs are an integral part of the strategy of the Chinese Communist Party, helping it achieve its goals and objectives. SOE assets are being focused to behave as "asset maximizers" over being used as "profit maximizers" like how we see most private-owned companies operate.
The U.S. presence on Fortune’s global list has been trending downward since 2002, when nearly 200 companies were mentioned. At that time, a scant dozen or so Chinese companies appeared on Fortune’s list. Besides America, Japan has also seen a precipitous drop in the number of firms it has in the top 500.