Walking a successful path toward lasting prosperity

China's biggest achievement in recent years has been its ability to maintain GDP growth despite adverse external developments and domestic challenges, said Jim O'Neill, the economist who coined the acronym BRIC.

O'Neill came up with the term in 2001 as a way to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China as a group of nations at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development. They were viewed as the economic powerhouses of the future. South Africa was added nine years later, creating the term BRICS.

"China is the only one of the four BRIC countries that, since 2011, has grown in line with my expectations," O'Neill said, ahead of the 19th CPC National Congress. "Brazil and Russia have struggled, India has done better, but China has managed to grow at close to 7.5 percent for the decade, in line with the official desire to double living standards this decade."