China's peaceful rise enhances world stability

China's peaceful rise has enhanced global stability and development, while the world's center is moving to Asia, a leading Danish expert on Asia study said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"We are entering a new era where Asia is becoming the center of the world," said Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, who worked as Danish ambassador to Singapore, Australia and New Zealand and now acts as a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore.

He said the big Asian companies are seeing growing power in the global economy. A total of 79 companies in China made the list of the Fortune Global 500 for the year 2012 while the number of the Indian companies is also increasing.

"In the coming years, we will see the phenomenon of the expansion of Chinese and Indian multinationals which will take a larger share of global trade, influence and shape the corporate governance of the world," said the expert.

He expected that the number of Asian cities among the world's top 50 cities ranked by GDP to increase from 7 to 20 in 2025.

"The traditional western growth theory is now obsolete. We need to transit the society which is based on values of less resource consumption and more social equality," he added.

Moeller, who is also the author of the book "How Asia can shape the world," believes that the world is moving from an era of plenty to scarcities, especially in raw materials and energy, labor force and social equality.

"In the last 30 years, Asia has experienced high growth with easy access to raw materials, low commodity prices, no energy problems and a growing labor force. But things are changing. In the future, the global growth will be slower. We will have to face a shortage of raw materials. There will not be enough energy. Oil prices will rise," said Moeller.

He remarked that the scarcities of energy and raw materials will be a major barrier for economic growth.

"Another barrier to growth is the increasing inequality, both in East and West. When the inequality increases, the share of the income from the labor force will decline which will lead to lower consumption and lower growth," said Moeller.

He noted that China had invested over 35 billion U.S. dollars in renewable energy, almost twice as much as that of the U.S..

"China is accelerating in transition of entering a much more mature and balanced state. However, the main challenges will be to move out of the bracket of labor intensive, low cost manufacturing to compete on products with higher value added such as technology, quality, and design," he noted.

He also spoke of the need to stop economic inequality from growing, and to address the challenge of corruption, which "distorts the economy, lowers the growth potential, and deepens inequality," he said.

He expected that China will pursue peace and development even the global challenges are becoming more pronounced, referring to the fact that China has always been a peace-loving country historically.

"I do not think China will challenge the established international order. The Chinese and American economies are highly dependent on each other and have broad common interests... China will contribute building up the peace and stability in the world," said Moeller.