The news that China has overtaken Japan is the world’s second-largest economy has prompted a great deal of discussion. It is stressed that, now no. 2, China is on its way to be the world’s largest economy by 2030. Who can now doubt that China’s growth is now “for real” or that China has become a “new economic superpower”? This is taken as proof that the 21st century is destined to be “China’s century.”

True enough, but is this “news” in the sense of being new? No. When China does become the world’s largest economy in the next two decades, it and the world will be returning to what once was normal.

China had the world’s largest economy in 1800. Its empire was the strongest, richest and perhaps best governed on Earth. The wealthiest men on the planet were Chinese. The next century and a half would witness China’s decline and the West’s rise, so the China we have known is poorer and less “developed.” But this period — almost the entire history of the American republic — is an exception to the historical rule.

Already 100 years ago there were predictions of China’s return to wealth and power. Our libraries are full of books of the early 20th century with titles such as China Awake, The Awakening of China, Rising China, and, my favorite of this popular genre: New Forces in Old China: an Unwelcome but Inevitable Awakening. (Confession: this is why being a China specialist is such easy work. Most of the books we’re writing today were written a century ago.)

China was on the edge of a great century 100 years ago. It became Asia’s first republic. It witnessed the first golden age of Chinese capitalism and made Shanghai the cosmopolitan center of Asia. Its new military would outlast Japan in World War II and fight the Americans to a standstill in Korea. And before the Communist revolution, it created one of the most dynamic systems of higher education in the world — one that would train the scientists and technocrats of later generations.

Indeed, were it not for the catastrophic rule of Mao Zedong in the third quarter of the 20th century, China would long ago have overtaken Japan in economic size and influence.

In short, China’s “new” economic power is less a surprise than an enduring fact of life for the world’s economy. A place that values entrepreneurship, education, engineering, internationalization, and a government strong enough (if sometimes too strong) to get things done can be a powerful partner and a formidable competitor.

China’s growth is above all a fact of business life. That is why the Harvard Business School’s only curriculum focusing on an individual country is our “Doing Business in China” course, with our 30 new cases. That is why our new Harvard Center Shanghai opened this year. And that is why, if you ask the question, “will the 21st century be the Chinese century?” the answer must be no. There have been many Chinese centuries before and, I suspect, many after our current moment.

William C. Kirby is the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University. A historian of modern China, Professor Kirby’s work examines China’s business, economic, and political development in an international context.