Indeed, the economy has been able to find new areas of growth through continued rebalancing, a vibrant tech sector and new sources of business for traditional heavy industries in Central Asia and elsewhere as a result of the Belt and Road Initiative.

There have been setbacks such as a major stock market correction and speculation against the Chinese yuan following an exchange rate adjustment in August 2015, but the last half decade has seen overall relative financial stability.

Stephen Roach, senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and one of most respected observers of China in the West, says the resilience of the Chinese economy has prevented the global economy from plunging into recession.

He points out that from 2012 to 2016, without China's contribution, the global economy would have grown by just 2 percent compared with the 3.3 percent it actually achieved.

"When the world economy grows anywhere below 2.5 percent that is a recession. There are 200 countries in the world and in a global recession usually half of them are contracting and the other half expanding. The only year there was actually a decline in world GDP post-World War II was in 2009, when it was down by about a tenth of a point," he says.

Roach, formerly chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China, says strides have also been made with rebalancing the economy over the past five years.

"There has been a rebalancing away from the producer mentality that was supported by exports and investment to an increasing consumer mentality that draws support from personal income and the services sector."

Louis Kuijs, head of Asia economics at Oxford Economics, does not expect to see a major change in the direction of economic policy emerging from the congress, with President Xi stressing the importance of "stability on all fronts".

"Unlike many observers, I do not expect major economic policy shifts. Stability of the economic system remains the key policy objective, and this is not compatible with bold, potentially disruptive reforms and a more aggressive reining in of credit growth that others appear to foresee," he says.

Kuijs, a former senior economist at the World Bank, says he expects a continued focus on reining in financial risk and reducing leverage consistent with the outcome of the Financial Work Conference in July.

"Something will have to change so that credit growth does not continue to grow significantly faster than GDP. I don't think China, however, is heading for a hard landing anytime soon."

Roach at Yale agrees that rising debt remains an issue but believes the problem remains highly manageable.

"The fears of a debt crisis are vastly overblown because China has an ample cushion of domestic savings, so the debt it owes is to itself and not foreign investors who would be likely to flee at the slightest problem."

One of the flagship policies of the last five years has been China's Belt and Road Initiative, which was launched by President Xi in September 2013.

The initiative, which involves creating greater connectivity and cooperation between countries across the world, has drawn major international interest.

The Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing in May was attended by no fewer than 29 foreign heads of state and government, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan.

China pledged an additional 100 billion yuan ($15.2 billion; 12.8 billion euros; ￡11.5 billion) to the Silk Road Fund, which was originally launched in November 2014 with an initial contribution of $40 billion.

It also directed extra funds to the two big policy banks, with the China Development Bank receiving 250 billion yuan and the Export-Import Bank of China 130 billion yuan to set up special lending facilities.

Jacques, the British journalist, author and academic, says the 19th CPC National Congress will usher in a period when the initiative really takes shape and form.

"We will be moving from announcements and proposals to projects actually coming on stream and we will see more clearly what the results are going to be and how China will manage to broaden and deepen its range of connections around the world."

Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Centre, agrees that Belt and Road is now firmly on the map.

"When you refer to Belt and Road, there is now no longer any question of people scratching their heads and wondering what it is about. They now know what you are talking about," he says.

"Whatever you say about the initiative, it is a vision, an aspiration, and although there is a tremendous amount still to do, there is a certainty in the view of the world the initiative conjures up, about how it is going to be reconnected, particularly in a Eurasian and East Asian context."

Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese politics and director of the Lau Institute at King's College London, believes problems in the West such as the confusion about the future direction of US policy and issues such as Brexit destabilizing the European Union have created a huge space for Belt and Road to grow and develop.

"The relative disarray in the rest of the world and China's relative stability means it is now in a much stronger geopolitical position, and grand narratives such as Belt and Road have become more prominent."

The focus of the last five years has also been on upgrading the economy. The launch of the Made in China 2025 strategy in March 2015 reaffirmed the continuing importance of manufacturing to the Chinese economy despite the government also trying to achieve a parallel macroeconomic shift toward consumption and services.

The strategy - similar in approach to Germany's Industry 4.0 initiative - places emphasis on 10 key areas: high-speed rail and railway equipment; high-end numerical control machinery and automation; maritime engineering equipment and high-tech vessel manufacture; new materials; aerospace and aviation equipment; electrical equipment; energy saving vehicles, agricultural equipment; information technology; and biomedicine.

Edward Tse, chairman of Gao Feng Advisory, a management consultancy, says China has a proven track record in such a top-down approach to driving innovation.

"If you look at China's current tech hubs such as at Shenzhen and Zhonguancun (the Beijing science park) and places like Hangzhou, the government has played a major role," he says.

"If the government decides it wants to move industry in a certain direction it can provide subsidies, set up capital funds, co-invest in startups, provide technology parks with reasonable rents and create incubators."

Tse, also author of China's Disruptors: How Alibaba, Xiaomi, Tencent and Other Companies Are Changing the Rules of Business, says it is not a unique approach but has been one of the most effective around the world.

"A lot of countries have done the same thing, including Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and even the United States, but China has probably had a higher batting average of success."

Thomas Luedi, Shanghai-based managing partner of management consultants AT Kearney's Asian energy and process industries practice, believes Made in China 2025 is an important statement by China.

"It says that when it comes to the next stage of evolution of manufacturing, China wants to be in the same league as Germany and Japan and do all the great stuff that they do in terms of high-tech engineering," he says.

"China no longer wants to be a processor of other peoples' stuff; it wants to be the owner of the process chain from the beginning to the end. It is showing it is prepared to invest the money and commitment to achieve this end."

Another important move of the past five years has been the anti-corruption campaign, which was launched after the 18th CPC National Congress.

The Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection under Wang Qishan has undertaken the most far-reaching anti-graft campaign in the Party's history.

More than 70,000 officials at or above county-head level have been investigated for suspected corruption since the 18th CPC National Congress.

Among the most high profile have been former Chongqing Party chief Sun Zhengcai, who was expelled from the Party on Sept 29, and former Politiburo standing committee member Zhou Yongkang, who was expelled from the Party and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2015.

President Xi made clear the aim of the campaign was to strengthen the bond between the Party and the people.

"If we don't redress unhealthy tendencies and allow them to develop, it will be like putting up a wall between our Party and the people, and we will lose our roots, our lifeblood and our strength," he said.

Jacques says the anti-corruption campaign has been crucial for China.

"It (corruption) was sapping the Party's credibility, so something like this was going to be very important. It wasn't an optional extra but absolutely essential. The decisiveness of the campaign has been one of the important characteristics of Chinese leadership over the years. They are very responsive when things need tackling. They don't kick it under the carpet. There is a dynamism about this system."

Mitter at Oxford also believes it has been an important move by the Party.

"It has been a serious effort. The major aspect of this is that anti-corruption is becoming institutionalized within the Chinese system. Many people have welcomed this."

Brown, also author of a new book, China's World, believes the anti-corruption campaign has been an entirely rational course of action to take.

"It is obviously a big attempt to really reform the sort of politics and the culture of the Party. It is still a work in progress, but the Party now seems to be more reformed than it was five years ago.

"My view is it is making the Party a more efficient decision-making body. It is a very strategic choice."

For Jacques, one of the biggest changes of the past five years has been China's commitment to reshaping the global order.

He believes Belt and Road, the AIIB and the New Development Bank, and other initiatives like China's increasing financial backing of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, offer a challenge to Washington's influence over global governance.

"If you look at institutions like the World Bank, they have been historically very Western-orientated and funded by the West. You have government deficit across large parts of the world, including North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East," he says.

"China has demonstrated that development can't be achieved without good governance, and by this I don't mean Western liberal democracy but the sort of governance that actually delivers the goods."

As a result, the 19th CPC National Congress is likely to attract more attention from around the world than any of its recent predecessors.

"China is now an international story in a way that it never was before," says Brown at the Lau Institute.

"The congress is not now just a China congress but a global congress, because the decisions that emerge from the leaders are going to be global in their impact as never before."

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn