Promise, potential, performance

He maintains, however, that his book was a timely counterpoint to all the books that presented a too-optimistic view of China.

"I recently counted the number of books on my own bookshelf with 'China' and 'rise' in their titles and I have about 25."

He says China still has major challenges if it wants to dominate the century and, in particular, with so-called soft power with few countries in the world wanting to emulate or be like China.

"My findings about China's continuing difficulties in gaining soft power abroad continue, and China's continued ambivalence about global governance are also very apparent," he says.

Kerry Brown, executive director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, says he is unconvinced whether the issue of China dominating the world is now the debate to be had.

"I am not entirely sure that this idea of the 21st century belonging to anyone in particular makes much sense. I thought the idea of nation states being the great drivers of all developments was coming to a slow end," he says.

"Of course, China will play a major role in the coming years, but it has so many challenges to face within itself that it is hard to see it being liberated from these internal preoccupations any time soon."

Tse at Booz & Co insists China still retains a very solid economic base to build on.

"People say that China has lost its low cost manufacturing advantage. Manufacturing is actually not just a labor costs issue. It is not the case also that all advanced manufacturing will be done in the US and not China. China has huge manufacturing advantages with its supply chains and efficiencies that it can leverage."

He also says that it will not be long before China has its own global brands that will challenge those in the West.

"I think things like WeChat (a China messaging service already successful in countries like India) has the potential to become globally recognized. There are also a number of other Chinese brands that have already made their mark such as (telecommunications company) Huawei and Lenovo in computers. I think most of China's future strong brands will come from the private sector."

Mitter at Oxford believes there is often a failure to detect a new self-confidence in China, particularly among the middle class in cities like Shanghai.

"You have this figure that some 60 percent of Americans don't have a passport and have no intention of traveling abroad. You could contrast this with China's middle class being very outward looking. People in Shanghai now regard internationalism and cosmopolitanism as part of their own make up," he says.

"They would be the first to concede that this is not an attitude coming from a farming background in the center of Ningxia (Hui autonomous region)."

Jacques argues there is still a failure in the West to recognize the challenge that China now poses.

He says many commentators are still locked into a mentality that the West will always rule since that has been the case since Britain became the first industrial nation more than 200 years ago.

"The greatest single problem facing the West this century is to stop looking down on China from a Western perspective rather than actually trying to understand it. I think Westerners are going to find it extremely difficult because for the last 200 years they have never really had to think about any culture being dominant other than their own."

Mathews at Addis Ababa University says China so far has been happy to go along with the Western created and dominated system.

"I think in the future China may play a bigger role and we might have a more China-dominated international system. The end of the 21st century is still a long way off. I think by then other countries will have emerged from Asia and even Africa and we might have a much more multi-polar world."

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn

( China Daily Africa Weekly 01/17/2014 page1)