China's new leadership is about to set the country on a dramatic new development path that will see 400 million people moving from the countryside to urban areas while it completely changes its economic goals by reducing dependence on overseas markets to concentrate on domestic sales for its manufacturers.

Moving 400 million people to cities by 2020 will be the world's biggest single resettlement program ever. The objective is that they will share today's upgraded urban lifestyle with the present generation of urban dwellers.

Also, to coincide with such huge numbers of people attaining a higher standard of living, the country's economy will begin its "pivot" away from overseas markets to domestic demand by providing a full range of modern products to upgrade living conditions for most of the population by 2020.

But can China really accomplish such enormous tasks in just seven years? How it all can be done will be debated by a panel of leading planners and thinkers at a forum being held on Tuesday local time at the United Nations Headquarters Building in New York City. The high-powered conference, titled "Forum on Sustainability and Governance - A China Story", is organized by the independent Chinese think tank China Energy Fund Committee.

Some of the erudite speakers will argue that it would be wrong to assume that China's economic growth over the past three decades is set to continue unabated. They will point out that the success of China's economy is leveraged on the ability of countries all over the world to pay for its products - an ability now in serious doubt with European finances in such disarray.

Beijing very astutely began making preparations some years ago to reduce its dependency on foreign trade and at the same time launched a scientifically planned national development plan to stimulate its domestic market for China-made products while further uplifting the standard of living of the masses.

This was called the "two doubles" since the goal was to double the 2010 GDP by 2020 while also doubling the per capita income of all citizens during the same period. The end result will be the building of a "moderately prosperous society", or xiaokang, as first broached by Deng Xiaoping more than three decades earlier, by 2020.

But an all-important prerequisite to this ambitious national goal is sustainability, without which its immediate viability and permanency would become suspect.

Furthermore, these far-reaching dreams do not end here. The natural treasures of China - its lakes, mountains, rivers and forests and unique native attractions such as pandas - will all receive appropriate protection and improvements in a campaign to show to the world the new face of "Beautiful China".

Also, details of the immense resettlement plan are being finalized to move 400 million rural dwellers into the small- and medium-sized cities on the periphery of the country's largest population centers. And once again with these projects, sustainability will be the governing factor.

Meanwhile, Tuesday's forum will not be a one-way street devoted solely to the ongoing triumphs of China in overcoming one major problem after another en route to its current success story. The analytical speakers will also scrutinize the reverse side of those successes - the failures, and the lessons that can be learnt from them. Furthermore, this frank examination of those missteps will be an invaluable guide to other developing countries now attempting to follow China's example, although of course on a much smaller scale.

The author is vice-chairman and secretary-general of the China Energy Fund Committee.

(HK Edition 04/17/2013 page7)