My visit to Beijing earlier this month to attend an international conference after a long interval of 11 years enabled me to witness the dramatic progress that China has achieved during the past quarter of a century. I had the good fortune earlier of serving as the minister in the Pakistan Embassy at Beijing from 1985 to 1988. I studied closely at that time the progress of the rural and urban reforms which had been initiated a few years earlier in China under its great leader Deng Xiaoping. One could see that China was being transformed in a very fundamental way from a rigid command economy to a more liberal framework in which market forces played a growingly important role in the economic decision-making process. The iron rice bowl policy which sacrificed efficiency for the sake of equality was replaced by incentives for hard work, efficiency and growth. The result was faster economic growth. Between 1980 and 2000, China increased its GDP by five times, thus, surpassing the ambitious target of quadrupling it within 20 years which had been set in 1980. More recently, the Chinese economy has grown at rates exceeding 10 percent per annum raising its GDP to US$3.94 trillion and to US$12.9 trillion in PPP terms in 2008. Latest studies show that China will become the second biggest economy of the world by 2025 and the world's biggest economy by 2041. The concrete results of China's economic progress could already be seen in the different spheres of the country's life in 1991 when I visited it as a member of a high level Pakistan delegation. I was, therefore, mentally prepared to see a far more developed country when I visited Beijing about a week ago. But nothing had prepared me for the radical economic and cultural transformation that China has undergone because of its phenomenal progress. Beijing now, like the capital of any advanced country, boasts of excellent infrastructure in the form of expressways, high rise buildings, big departmental stores, five-star hotels and other paraphernalia of a developed city. Its cultural life resembles that of the modern city of an advanced country. Its TV channels provide a comprehensive coverage of important national and international political, economic and cultural developments. In short, the impression that one gathers is that of a country which has been integrated closely with the rest of the world. This, of course, is a far cry from the days of the Cultural Revolution of 1960's when the country was isolated internationally. China with the huge size of its economy and foreign exchange reserves exceeding US$1.9 trillion is destined to play a growingly important role in international economic and financial institutions as well as in international deliberations on important economic issues. This is because what China does or doesn't do with its economy and the way it handles its external economic relations have enormous implications for the rest of the world. It was not surprising, therefore, to see Chinese President Hu Jintao playing a prominent role in the recent G20 meeting in Washington to discuss the current financial crisis. Significantly, during the G20 meeting President Hu Jintao called for the reform of the international financial system to establish "a new international financial order that is fair, just, inclusive and orderly" and to foster "an institutional environment conducive to sound global economic development." China also assured the international community that it would make its own contribution to the tackling of the current financial crisis by maintaining steady and relatively fast growth of its economy and by playing a positive role in maintaining international financial stability and promoting the development of the world economy. The Chinese government has already announced a stimulus package of US$586 billion to be spent during the next two years to maintain the high growth rate of its economy in the face of the declining demand for its exports because of the current recession in the developed countries. This amount would be spent primarily on highways, railways, airports, rural infrastructure, affordable housing, gas pipelines, nuclear power plants, public health and education, improvement of environment, water projects, export rebates and technical innovation. It is remarkable that despite the global downturn, the Chinese economy grew by 9 percent during the last quarter of the current year, which was a very high growth rate for a major economy though still well below last year's growth rate of 11.9 percent. China also remained a major destination for foreign direct investment. In the first 10 months of the current year, China attracted US$81.1 billion in FDI which was 35 percent higher than the comparable figure a year earlier. In view of the various steps taken by the Chinese government, the strength of its economy and its huge foreign exchange reserves, it can be predicted with a reasonable degree of certainty that China will ride out the current financial storm while maintaining a fairly high growth rate which, however, may be lower than its performance during the past few years. The continuation of China's high growth rate while most of the developed world goes into recession will inevitably raise its ranking vis--vis other advanced economies of the world. As the relative position of the Chinese economy improves in the comity of nations, it will sooner or later acquire greater voice and clout in international economic and financial institutions like IMF and the World Bank. The importance of its role in international forums like the Doha Round of trade talks will also be enhanced. In short, the prospects are of China emerging as an extremely important player on the international economic scene in the near future. China's high economic growth rate will also provide its leadership with the option of increasing military expenditure to safeguard its essential security interests. In fact, according to some observers, this process may already be taking place. However, China's military expenditure will remain far below that of the US in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, as China's economic and military power grows, so will its political clout in international fora. John Ikenberry in the Foreign Affairs issue of January-February, 2008, notes that China is likely "to use its growing influence to reshape the rules and institutions of the international system to better serve its interests." The key question is whether this tectonic power shift will take place peacefully or whether the rise of China will lead to "a volcanic struggle with the United States over the global rules and leadership." Obviously there is no pre-determined answer to this important question which will decide whether the 21st century will be a century of peace and prosperity or whether it will be marked by tensions and wars as was the case during the 20th century which witnessed two World Wars besides numerous local and regional conflicts. A lot will depend upon whether the US leadership has the sagacity to accommodate China's rising power within the existing international order by making it inclusive, consensual, fair and rule-based. Whatever be the US strategic response to China's growing power, it is almost certain that the 21st century will be marked by China's emergence as a major global power. For all practical purposes, the US "unipolar moment" has already passed. Although the US will remain the most powerful nation of the world for quite some time to come, the world will increasingly become mutipolar with several other centres of power such as China, the EU, Japan, India, Russia and Brazil playing an important role on the international political scene. China's rise has important lessons to offer to countries like Pakistan which have lagged far behind in the race for progress and prosperity. It also has important implications for the evolving strategic environment in Asia and for Pakistan's security. It is to these important issues that I intend to return in my subsequent articles on China. The writer is a retired ambassador E-mail: javid.husain@gmail.com