Chinese Dream to occupy center stage in 2014

'To sleep: Perchance to dream." Students of Shakespeare worldwide will recognize these words spoken by Hamlet. Dreams have inspired people and nations for centuries, perhaps none more so than the American Dream. Yet dreams are precious and can be broken. Britain's Electric Light Orchestra in their famous pop hit implored us to "hold on tight to your dream". China should do that next year as it rises to many challenges.

As 2013 comes to a close, China's top leader Xi Jinping's Chinese Dream for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has come to occupy center stage and in the coming Year of the Horse, China will gallop forward in its pursuit. This dream is both a personal and varied one for individuals, and a collective one for the nation. Hope and harmony feature loudly in it.

After 35 years of unbroken economic growth, often around double digits, why shouldn't China, which has raised hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, dare to dream?

The Chinese Dream is multifaceted, embracing improved living standards, greater fairness with a crackdown on corruption, and a rising force for good in a changing international arena.

China's per capita GDP in terms of purchasing power parity was about $8,000 in 2012, versus $48,000 in the United States. China may be the second-largest economy but surely few would begrudge its people achieving the dream of doubling their average annual income and becoming a moderately prosperous nation over the next decade. That prosperity will greatly benefit the rest of the world, because China is market of more than 1.3 billion people offering opportunities for win-win growth.

A key to this prosperity is maintaining robust but balanced economic growth, with improved environmental policies. In November, the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party of China Central Committee in November decided to deepen reforms to restructure the economy, allowing market forces to rise to the top while retaining a core role for restructured State-owned enterprises. This is one pillar of the dream, and includes increased economic efficiency, innovation, higher value-added industries and a more open financial infrastructure.

China watchers eagerly await 2014 as more building blocks are being put in place. While the right kind of investment will remain important and China will reach out to new export markets around the world, the acid test will be signs of the long awaited rise in domestic household consumption as a percentage of income.