Light entertainment: Hidden time, and shifted label

Rick (via Twitter) tells me he is baffled by this chart that showed up in Financial Review:

 

I'm baffled as well. What might the designer have in mind?

Based on the cues such as length of the curves, one would expect the US, Singapore, Japan, etc. to be leaders and India and China to be laggards. But what is being plotted on the vertical axis? It's not explained.

The title of the chart seems to indicate there is a time dimension but it's not on the horizontal axis where you'd expect it. The vertical axis does not appear to be time either, as it runs negative. The length of the lines could encode time but it is counterintuitive since China's line should then be much longer than that of the U.S., given its history.

Finally, how does one explain the placement of the callout box, noting China's GDP per capita. It literally points to nowhere.