Evolving role brings global recognition

Editor's Note: The Communist Party of China will hold its 19th National Congress on Oct 18. In the runup to the meeting, China Daily asked four prominent experts for their views on developments in China and the country's global leadership.

President Xi Jinping visited France in 2014 and 2015, putting it among the few countries that he has traveled to more than once since he became China's top leader in late 2012.

Such close and effective engagement with big powers has turned Xi into a household name in France, said Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a veteran French politician who has devoted himself to bringing his country and China closer for decades. "When you run across people on the streets of Paris, everybody knows him, and Xi is already a world star," Raffarin said in Paris.