The world is changing, and it will surely change faster after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), last month. The increased pace of change, as well as its new direction, will be set by China’s rise.

China is sure to rise further in the years to come, thanks to the emergence of one man as its paramount leader, Xi Jinping. He now leads a China that is on its way to becoming the most powerful nation in the world, overtaking the United States in regard to many parameters of power, barring, thankfully, military outreach.

However, military spending and the projection of military power are no longer the top criteria for a nation’s standing in the world.

At a time when globalization demands that the leaders of major nations have a global vision and a global commitment, Xi Jinping towers over other world leaders.

Speaking with supreme confidence about China’s future at the congress, he presented a vision and a rational roadmap for the attainment of the “Chinese Dream” with all-round “national rejuvenation.” Its concrete form will be the fully-developed “modern socialist nation” by 2050 when “common prosperity for everyone will be basically achieved.”

The Chinese leader is beginning to make more sense to the international community than any other contemporary politician. He spoke with conviction about the need to continue globalization, preserve stability and ensure world peace as a precondition for development of all nations.

He seemed to be reassuring any skeptic that, even as China enters an era that will see it “moving closer to center stage,” it “will continue to play its part as a major and responsible country.”