Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd predicted China will emerge as the world's largest economy before 2020 and said the international community should become more engaged with China.

Rudd, who speaks fluent Chinese and has studied China for 35 years, said the world's most populous nation will probably overtake the United States in the next 10 years.

This will be the first time in two centuries that a non-English-speaking, non-Western state will occupy this position, he said recently at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading international affairs think tank in London .

Over the past 10 years, China has achieved average annual economic growth of 10.7 percent, far above the global figure of 3.9 percent over the same period.

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Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister

The country has already surpassed Japan, and now has the world's second-biggest economy, with average per capita annual GDP of $5,432, up from $1,135 in 2002.

Rudd's remarks came ahead of Thursday's opening in Beijing of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Rudd said China is likely to introduce further economic reforms. "I believe we'll see reforms to China's State-owned enterprises.

"We'll see reforms to the Chinese financial services industry and a greater ability for Chinese private enterprises to have easier and more competitive access to finance, sustain and expand their operations,” he added.

For the rest of the world, how to engage with "our Chinese friends” is crucial, Rudd said, adding that the US ought to develop a strategic roadmap for its relations with China for the next five years "as a matter of priority”.

Both countries need to understand each other much better, Rudd said.

"We should continue to engage China on its global contributions to upholding global peace and security,” he added.

He explained that these include peacekeeping operations, counterterrorism and anti-piracy operations, continuing to reinforce with the Chinese that they have a significant and continuing national interest in sustaining and enhancing the current global rules-based security order.

Within the Asia-Pacific region, he said, "we should work with Beijing on the long-term project of turning the East Asia Summit into something approaching an Asia-Pacific community”.

The East Asia Summit is a regional leaders' forum for strategic dialogue and cooperation on key challenges facing the East Asian region.

Membership of the EAS comprises the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the US and Russia.

Cecily Liu in London contributed to this story.

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