But detailed policy content may be less important than a more fundamental transformation - the length and condition for real sustainable growth.

Clearly China has gotten something right. In terms of per capita GDP, an almost vertical jump is taking place. With the structural changes and constant ongoing adjustment, China is never aiming for the best, but trying to bring things together and keep moving forward.

Whenever there was a crisis, and there have been several points of crisis, the Chinese government responded with additional reforms, not fewer reforms. Typically whenever there's a crisis, a country's politicians and policymakers step back because some of the risks are too high, but in the case of China it was the other way around.

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China allowed lots of room for local experimentation in its highly decentralized environment. If some-thing wasn't working, provincial officials had a lot of flexibility to scale down. This has clearly produced something useful.

The proof is that the fundamentals are doing better. The tax base has expanded to about 20 percent of GDP - quite remarkable for a developing country. This means China is moving into a different kind of economy and society. Much of the economy is now highly competitive with markets becoming more important. Trade has been liberalized with economic expansion remaining strong.

Despite attempts by the government to slow it down, the economy grew by 10.7 percent last year. And yet, remarkably, inflation remained low.

China would not have succeeded to such a great degree without managed population growth. The estimates are that instead of 1.3 billion, China would have had a population between 1.5 and 1.6 billion. Clearly, the per capita growth would have been far less.

Along with development and transformation, China keeps facing challenges. The social capital is being affected as social cohesion is diminished by the substantial rise in income and non-income inequality; a rural population increasingly elderly, female, and vulnerable; and rural-urban inequalities.

The rights of migrant workers are a challenge. Another challenge is the aging issue. China is in the unusual situation of being a developing nation with an aging population, more characteristic of more advanced societies. And there are bitter signs that the poorest are no longer taking part in the nation's economic growth. According to World Bank data, the very poorest of the poor may be slipping backwards even though the poor may generally be doing better. The fiscal burden remains heavy at local levels.

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