‍By CGTN's Dialogue

“With the disappearance of American global leadership from the world, the world is then asking who is going to provide it. The world’s number one power is not going to provide it, will the world’s number two power provide it? These are big questions for the party congress,” said Professor Kishore Mahbubani.

CGTN’s Dialogue spoke to experts and diplomats from around the world on the eve of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, to find out where the country stands on the global stage.

Global governance and global leadership are buzzwords often used when discussing today’s hot issues and crises.

Former Prime Minister of France, Dominique De Villepin, explained the concept from the point of view of a senior politician from a major global power.

“Leadership means ability to take decisions and to create good conditions for decisions. That will be initiative,” he said.

“The initiative in the Middle East, how to solve the Syrian Crisis, initiative in Libya, initiative on North Korea, on Iran, try to create the situation where different countries, different positions may go on one good track.”

“That needs imagination. You need good diplomacy. You need talent. You need think tanks. That’s a huge work to be done, not just one person deciding for all the others. It’s creating the conditions for imagination and decision,” he explained.

“China has been for very long a little bit discreet, a little bit shy in regard with the international scene. You can’t be behind. You have to show the way. So many risks, so many uncertainties and so many difficulties, you need to take the risk of decision. And I do believe today, Chairman Xi is in the position of taking these risks.”

“The 19th National Congress of the CPC will be so important on two counts. One is about who is providing the next leadership. The other is what are the next round of ideas,” said Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy from National University of Singapore.

“China has done amazing 40 years of exceptional and spectacular economic growth. Any it’s done amazingly well by any standards. The question is not about the past 40 years, but the next 40 years. Are you going to take the same formula as the first 40 years and apply to the next 40 years?” he asked.

“The expectations of China from the rest of the world are growing. That’s something that sometimes Chinese leaders don’t pay enough attention to.”

Although economically China has become an important driving force for global trade, what is lacking on the other hand is for China to build up an image of a global leader.

Moon Chung-in, special advisor to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, used the political philosophy of Chinese Emperor Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty to deliver this message.

“There are three types of leadership: One is by human virtues or moral leadership; leadership by hegemony power, and leadership by coercive naked power. China has shown both hegemony power and naked power, but China has been short of showing moral leadership, the leadership by human virtue.”

“So you can really exercise your soft power. Let all the other countries respect China. Therefore really, after the 19th Party Congress, I really hope new leader Xi Jinping would show to the world, I can be a leader with a moral virtue,” he said.

“I see some paradox in Chinese international stands. President Xi strongly advocates global international economic order. If we look at China’s security behavior towards neighboring countries: countries conflict with India, greater tension between China and South Korea over the issue of THAAD, and limited leadership in resolving North Korea issue, you have still continuing tensions with Japan.”

“Finally, China could have shown more leadership in security domain too. Therefore there is some kind of mismatch between economy leadership and security leadership,” he added.

“President Xi Jinping’s views are very balanced. We have made tremendous progress. However, we still have a long way to go. There will be hurdles.”

Su Ge, President of the China Institute of International Studies, highlighted two potential traps in the way of China becoming a global super power.

“And then he (Xi) said that we should be prepared not to fall into two traps. Domestically we need to guard against the trap of middle income. And internationally we are the rising power, we need to guard against the trap known as Thucydides Trap. We are not running into conflict with the status quo power,” he said.

“Politically, we are going to set up to have more partnerships instead of falling into alliances, to avoid the political alliance like the Cold War. And the world economically is no longer a zero sum game. We need to join the efforts to make the economic pie much larger. We need to bring about contact between and among so many civilizations. Because all countries considered have their own national conditions.”

“There is a Chinese Model. It has been proved working for China. We hope that it will be working for some of the developing countries,” he said.

There has been wide debate about what exactly the Chinese Model is and how it can benefit the rest of the world.

“There is a Chinese Model,” said Zhang Weiwei, Dean of the China Institute at Fudan University, “If you look at China’s model, politically it’s about selection plus election rather than simple election, the 19th National Congress will witness this; economically, it’s about mixed economy, in which the state plays a quite prominent role, of course the market also plays a very important role; on a social level, it’s about dynamic interactions between the state and the society, rather than state versus society or the other way around; in foreign policy, we advocate and promote win-win approach, partnerships rather than military alliances.”

The ongoing 19th National Congress of the CPC is expected to unlock the answers to many of these questions over the next week.