Behold the world's next innovation leader - China

Washington

CHINA has achieved much since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping initiated the transition to a market economy. In terms of headline economic progress, the pace of China's transformation over the past 40 years is unprecedented. The country's GDP grew by nearly 10 per cent per year on average, while reshaping global trade patterns and becoming the second-largest economy in the world. This success lifted 800 million out of poverty, and the mortality rate of children under five years old was halved between 2006 and 2015.

The question now is whether China, well positioned to become the world's innovation leader, will realise that opportunity in 2018 or soon after.