Interview: China sets up example for Africans to create miracle through self-reliance

"I was impressed by the number of architects from all over the world who were in China. If you are a good architect and you are not in China, then there is something wrong with you because all the best architects on earth have moved to China because that is where the government does not only have the ambitions, but has the cash to pay for those ambitions.

"The changing of the skyline of Beijing before my eyes was something which was mind-boggling, but also the way they dealt with the challenges of a modern city in taking the best solutions which may be available on the world market today. That was also impressive like the way they used the old walls of Beijing into ring roads."

He added that Shanghai had also been changed in a big way and was poised to become the financial capital of the world.

China was not only using Chinese knowledge as it developed, but was also tapping the knowledge of the best possible research and development from all over the world.

However, despite all these accolades, China still had to deal with issues of garbage collection in Beijing, demand for land and how to deal with rural people who felt disadvantaged by current economic developments, he said.

The transformation of China from being a country that was asking for money for internal investment to a financial powerhouse was caused by the Chinese themselves.