Much has been made of China’s recent surpassing of Japan as the world’s second-largest economy. China is on its way to being the planet’s largest economy by 2030—proof, some say, that the 21st century is destined to be “China’s century.”

True enough, but this isn’t quite the news people think it is. When China does become the world’s largest economy in the next two decades, the world will only be returning to what was once perfectly normal.

China had the world’s largest economy in 1800. Its empire was the strongest, richest and perhaps best governed in the world. The next century and a half would witness China’s decline and the West’s rise, which is why the China many of us have come to know is poorer and less “developed.” But this recent period has been an exception to the rule.

A hundred years ago there were predictions of China’s return to wealth and power. Our libraries are full of turn-of-the-century books with titles such as China Awake, Rising China and New Forces in Old China: An Unwelcome but Inevitable Awakening.

China was on the edge of a great century 100 years ago. It would go on to become Asia’s first republic, witness the first golden age of Chinese capitalism, which made Shanghai the cosmopolitan center of Asia, 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” power is less a surprise than an enduring fact of life for the global economy. A nation that values entrepreneurship, education, engineering and a government strong enough (if sometimes too strong) to get things done can be a powerful partner and certainly a formidable competitor.

China’s growth is above all a fact of business life. Will the 21st century be the Chinese century? Maybe. But there have been many Chinese centuries before our current one and, most likely, many more after.

William C. Kirby is the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University.