Much as the relocation of East Asia’s labor-intensive industry to lower-wage China stirred a virtuous economic cycle that went much beyond mere capital accumulation, so also China-Africa production capacity cooperation and transfer can create a sum bigger than its parts. Far from being a new form of colonialism, as the critics have panned it, the transfer of industrial capacity and world-class infrastructure will reduce transaction costs in Africa. But success abroad must first begin at home.

More than 60 countries have welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, what is China’s rationale for pursuing this grandiose vision – one that so many countries, especially in the developing world, have embraced?

The China Dream was something of a nationalist mantra, framed as a rejuvenation by which China would recapture its former position of global prominence, commensurate with its status as the world’s second largest economy. Considerable attention is devoted to the risks and opportunities of this rebalancing – and to the related consequences for sustainable Chinese development and the broader global economy.

As the new U.S. administration has undercut its commitments to multilateral institutions and challenged free trade orthodoxy, China has upgraded its image as a pillar of globalization and doubled down on its Belt and Road Initiative. Amid the ongoing uncertainty for the future of globalization, it is thus possible to understand China’s BRI as part of a formative “Silk Road system,” an emerging economic substructure – “Sino-centric” yet symbiotic to the U.S.-shaped Bretton Woods.

China’s experiments with industrial and financial policies may end up providing emerging economies with valuable insight into how to avoid the middle-income trap. But, for a US concerned with its eroding manufacturing base, the lesson is already apparent.

Giving priority to important institutional innovations and rule-making will not only provide opportunities for promoting China’s industrial capacity cooperation and manufacturing upgrading, but also promote a new round of prosperity-oriented growth for global trade and new globalization.

The global economy now appears to be shaking off its deep post-crisis malaise, but the overhyped idea of a “new normal” for the world economy overlooks an extraordinary transformation in the global growth dynamic over the past nine years. It raises profound questions about the efficacy of monetary policy, development strategies, and the role of China.

Despite China’s struggle to identify new drivers of growth, there are many positive indicators in the economy right now. We should be more result-focused and open-minded about China’s economic pursuit, and be willing to see the positive side while weighing the country’s economic future.

With economic interdependence in the era of globalization, and determination by both sides to avoid the Thucydides Trap, it is debatable that the rising power will slide into an inevitable conflict with the established power. But China’s struggle to shift from a labor-intensive economy to one driven by technology and knowledge may make other “traps” irrelevant.

Lawrence J. Lau reviews the highlights of the nation’s annual NPC and CPPCC meetings to check the health of its economy and society, and finds the progress in both areas encouraging, not least the successes in judicial reform.