Editor's note: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will hold a press conference to wrap up this year's session of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top parliamentary body, on March 16.

China Daily website asked scholars from around the world what they would like to ask and suggest if they had a chance to talk with Premier Li face to face.

Alan Barrell, Professor and entrepreneur in residence at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

If I had the chance to meet with Premier Li, I would ask him to enable the flow of young people to and from China – as we have seen it in the past decade – with an open-minded approach to international education and collaboration – and to keep the pressure on the higher education system and industry to encourage imagination, creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship as key elements in the development of people.

Also to find ways to apply these kinds of principles to earlier stages in the education process – as I saw it happen on my last visit to Beijing where a pilot study looking at encouraging greater creativity in primary education is being undertaken.

China during the past several centuries has provided so many of the great inventions which have benefited the world and humanity. Education and the release of creative energy could lead to a new age of super inventiveness for China.

I would like to convince Premier Li about that.


Bill Jones, Washington bureau chief of Executive Intelligence Review.

If I had the opportunity to speak with Premier Li, I would tell him that he should look to the policies which Franklin Roosevelt utilized during the Great Depression to bring a population then thrust into the mire of economic misery back to a decent standard of living.

It was also an era in which the "free market" had failed in its mission and had to be brought under control before progress could be made.

Roosevelt, like Lincoln before him, had turned to an economic policy as had been expressed by economists such as Alexander Hamilton and the German economist, Friedrich List, and earlier by the great Jean-Baptiste Colbert, rather than to the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith - a hand which is often in your pocket stealing your wallet.

While economic "orthodoxy" these days has made the "market" sacrosanct, the real development of nations has been accomplished on the basis of a dirigisme policy, in which a controlled market may also play an important, but subordinate role.

If I had the chance to speak with Premier Li, I would suggest the transition of Chinese investment strategy from traditional industries, energy and infrastructure which have been served through sovereign funds to services and high-value interests which are served primarily through private capital.

The modality of such transition is the role of private equity and of institutional investors. This appears to be one of the most prolific trends for years to come and reveals the private sector influence on investment decisions and outcomes.