The 55-kilometer-long Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge that connects Hong Kong on the east of the Pearl River Delta with Macao and Zhuhai on the west is set to be world's longest cross-sea bridge. (D.J. CLARK/CHINA DAILY)
For some, such as Zhu Ning, a professor of finance at Tsinghua University, it is no longer about chasing GDP numbers. "The focus is now on the development of the overall economy. People have criticized China's growth being all about growth's sake and not about development," he said.
To move to a high-quality growth model will be a significant challenge for China. Economic growth is normally driven by a combination of labor and capital inputs. However, in China's case, its working population will be declining faster than most major economies because of the ongoing legacy impact of the one-child policy. The economy should also become less capital intensive if rebalancing is to be achieved and debt levels reduced.
The only option for China, therefore, is to improve what economists call total factor productivity, which means increasing productivity. Which will not be easy, as many economies around the world have battled with decreasing productivity for decades.
For George Magnus, an associate of the Oxford University China Centre and a leading expert on China's economy, technology is key to this. "Of all the areas of new era economic thinking the focus on technology is probably the most important," he said. "You just cannot keep growing investment because you will end up with problems of overcapacity, over-indebtedness and mal investment."
This is very much the policy-driven side of the new era.
China coming of age
Seven months on from Xi's speech, what does the whole concept of the new era now mean?
Certainly, the speech itself captured headlines around the world with many seeing it as China finally coming of age and occupying a central position on the world stage. The main discussions about the new era since then have largely taken place within China rather than outside.
"People outside of China are waiting to see the ideas that underpin it and what will be the substantial parts of the new era from China's side that will affect them," says Rana Mitter, director of the Oxford University China Centre. "Those outside of China are much more aware of the Belt and Road Initiative."
A number of analysts, however, believe that the new era is important because the whole world is having to accommodate China. "If China has a new era then the world is going to have a new era because of the way China impinges on that new world," said Kerry Brown, director of the Lau Institute at King's College London. "China has become this very prominent geopolitical actor in a short space of time."
All the indications so far are that China is going to be a very different geopolitical actor than the US, certainly one less inclined to make unilateral military interventions. The Belt and Road Initiative and the setting up of institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank may be more the templates of China's global involvement.
"It is not going to be like the United States in its prime. It is going to be much more collective in its approach and more of a stabilizer on the world stage," added Brown.
One of the essential messages of the new era is about winning the battle against poverty, which Xi throughout his career has always seen as a scourge since he was Party chief of Ningde prefecture in Fujian province 30 years ago and implemented a series of poverty-reduction policies.
This is why the new era has so much resonance in Africa, in particular, where 400 million people still live below the poverty line. For some people, this could be the essential lesson of the new era for the rest of the world.
"Britain's legacy to the rest of the world was the concept of the rule of law," says Hugh Peyman, author of China's Change: The Greatest Show on Earth. "The great American legacy was modern management systems, and the essential legacy of China's could be on how to handle laggard communities, what we now call the left-behind and now a phenomenon in the West again."
For those who live and work in China, there is a sense of a society not only just moving but looking forward. This is no longer the case in the West with many countries' incomes stagnating and living standards falling 10 years after the global financial crisis.
"There is an important shift that has taken place in China as a result of new era," said Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. "There is a new atmosphere, a certain exuberance, self confidence and élan that you can see among the Chinese population that you no longer get in the West."
This might yet prove the essential legacy of the new era－the time when China had the confidence to face the world on its own terms and not on those dictated by others.
By Andrew Moody
