As China becomes an emerging economy poised to take a more central role in global finances, it's current political activities at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing has attracted much media attention and think tanks in the US, as they observe the machinations of the NPC and CPPCC with intense debates focusing on China's economic strategy.

Our Correspondent Wang Shan Shan has the details.

 Professor Pieter Bottelier from John Hopkins University in Washington, says he's optimistic about China's economic prospects.

He sees Chinese leaders changing its economic pattern and sees China's growth rate of 8.7% in 2009 as a strong boost to the world economic recovery.

"China was the most important factor to support global recovery. China accounted for, by my calculations, a little over 50% of the world growth last year. So the entire Asian region, particularly the Southeast Asian region but also South Korea and Japan have benefited from China's expansion. I would say the whole world has benefited."

Professor Bottelier believes that China's economic growth is largely attributed to the enormous expansion of bank lending, which can't be the model for the long term, and the Beijing leadership realized this. This is how he sees China transforming it's economic growth model.

"Get rid of good deal of export incentives and restructure the investment-consumption balances in favor of consumption by raising the cost of capital."

Professor Bottelier says he is optimisitc that China will rebalnce its economy but it will not be easy.

"From 2009, it was the first year, by my calculation, household consumption growth was slightly higher than GDP growth. If we want to rebalance Chinese economy, the consumption growth rate has to exceed GDP growth rate for the next 5 or 10 years."

Shan Shan, CRI news, Washington.