Ray Dalio says China is winning the economic race against the US, as the billionaire investor doubles down on controversial stance

• Billionaire investor Ray Dalio has said China is winning the economic race against the US.
• The hedge fund titan told the BBC that China would likely become "stronger in most ways."

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio has said China is winning the economic competition against the US, doubling down on his controversial stance on the country.

Asked on the BBC's "Newsnight" program Thursday whether China was beating the US, Dalio said: "Yes, it's winning."

He added: "Their growth rate at a slow level is about twice the Western world's growth rate at a fast level."

The hedge fund titan also predicted the Chinese economy would overtake the US in size to become much more powerful.

"[China is] four times the size population-wise [than] the United States," he told the BBC. "So if its per capita income was half the size, the [economy] as a whole would be twice the size.

"So yes, that's the character of the environment where it's winning and it has a lot more likelihood of being much larger, stronger in most ways."

Dalio founded, and is now the chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates, the biggest hedge fund in the world. His net worth is $20 billion, according to Forbes.

The famous investor has waded into controversy over China, with critics accusing him of ignoring the human rights issues in a country in which he has significant financial interests. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Dalio recently raised $1.3 billion for its third China fund.

Dalio found himself in the spotlight last month after likening Beijing to strict parents, when asked by CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin about the country's human rights record and the disappearance from public view of tennis player Peng Shuai.

Senator Mitt Romney said Dalio's "feigned ignorance of China's horrific abuses and rationalization of complicit investments… is a sad moral lapse."

Dalio later said he was misunderstood and that he took China's human rights record into account when investing there.

Read more: Ray Dalio predicts there's a 30% chance the US will break out into civil war in the next 10 years

China's economy has grown almost 10% a year on average since Beijing carried out major reforms in the late 1970s, lifting more than 800 million people out of poverty, according to the World Bank.

China's gross domestic product in dollar terms is around $14.7 trillion, whereas that of the US is $20.9 trillion, World Bank data shows.

Yet there are clouds on the horizon, with highly indebted property developer Evergrande teetering on the edge of default and a falling working-age population.

Dalio told the BBC that he believes the collapse of Evergrande is being dealt with in a "healthy" way and that it will be good for the Chinese economy for the government to curb property speculation.