To say China has had an eventful decade is an understatement. In the past 10 years, the country rose from the sixth-largest economy in the world to the second-largest, possibly overtaking the United States as early as this year. Its average gross domestic product growth of 10 percent a year lifted an estimated 500 million people out of poverty and created a burgeoning middle class with discretionary income for consumption and travel. And a total overhaul of the nation’s capital was capped off by an Olympic Games that spared no expense.

Of course, the rapid economic ascendance of this country of 1.3 billion people hasn’t come without challenges. As cities such as Beijing and Shanghai become more modern, much of the nation’s rural population remains impoverished and lives on a per capita income of less than $4 a day. In addition to rising inequality, rapid urbanization contributed to the worsening pollution problem, leaving 90 percent of the underground water in Chinese cities contaminated and half of the country’s population consuming water below World Health Organization standards.

China CCTV office building in Beijing © Chinahbzyx | Dreamstime.com

Though China maintained strong growth rates throughout the 2008 global financial crisis, the economy has been slowing since 2012 to an all-time low of 7.7 percent. Last year, the nation’s leaders unveiled plans for sweeping reforms that would end the economy’s reliance on investment and exports (a strategy that fueled double-digit growth for 30 years) and allow market forces to play a bigger role.

At the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress in March, Premier Li Keqiang announced the annual growth target would remain at 7 percent, signaling the government’s intention to focus on improving the quality of life in China rather than the pace of growth. The per capita income of the nation’s urban residents rose by more than 300 percent in the past 10 years, and by 2025, Shanghai and Beijing will together have 14 million households with annual incomes above $20,000.

China already represents the largest market for passenger cars and most other consumer products, and it’s expected to become the world’s biggest consumer market by next year. The country’s fast-growing consumer class has boosted the markets for retail, housing and travel with double-digit growth. Luxury businesses like Prada, which counts on China for up to 30 percent of its global sales, are doubling the number of their retail stores in China, while half of the world’s new shopping malls are being built here.

Beijing shopping mall © Grace0612 | Dreamstime.com

In his March work report, Premier Li also announced that government spending is being increased by more than 9 percent, with a push to build more public housing, suggesting that China’s leaders will continue to rely on investment in infrastructure and real estate to reach their growth target for years to come. With the option of letting credit flow freely, China’s leaders have shown they’re willing to do whatever it takes to drive the growth of their giant economy.

Around the nation’s capital, new property projects are being established at an ever-increasing pace. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said Beijing should stick to its leading role in politics, culture, finance and scientific innovation, indicating much of the city’s manufacturing and service sectors will be moved to the regions around the capital. Small commodity markets, such as the wholesale clothing markets which employ tens of thousands of migrant workers, are being moved to nearby Hebei Province.

In an effort to reduce air pollution, which reached record levels this spring, Beijing ordered other major industries to reduce emissions or leave the city altogether. Beijing Capital Steel, once one of the city’s largest employers, already relocated most of its operations to the city of Tangshan. According to Beijing Mayor Li Shixiang, looking forward the capital will be more selective in the industries it promotes and focus on high-end, creative and low-carbon businesses.

Increasingly, China’s capital is becoming known for innovative entrepreneurs and high-growth startup companies, supported by a large community of both Chinese and foreign venture capital firms. The layer of smog that blankets Beijing certainly hasn’t hurt the city’s office market, which in 2014 rose three notches to rank the fourth-most expensive location to rent office space in the world. This year, the city hopes to attract 15 more foreign multinational companies to set up regional headquarters here.

But even Beijing’s success can’t compare to the economic prosperity of Shanghai, which boasts offices for 491 of the world’s Fortune 500 companies and expects to add another 150 multinational companies by 2020. The city will continue to offer financial incentives to encourage firms to set up headquarters and research and development centers in satellite cities downtown, especially in the industries of information technology, biomedicine and alternative energy.

China’s newest experiment in free-market policies is the Shanghai Free Trade Zone, which opened in September last year. Through eased trade, investment and monetary rules, the 11-square-mile zone in the Pudong District will serve as a testing ground for liberalizing China’s economy. The FTZ also features high-end shopping at duty-free prices, which will no doubt continue to draw local residents and visitors to shop in Shanghai for luxury items they previously would have traveled to Hong Kong to purchase.

Shanghai’s Pudong skyline, with the Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center © Wangkun Jia | Dreamstime.com

Another boon to Shanghai’s growing foreign and domestic tourism will be the new Disney Resort opening at the end of 2015 in Pudong. The resort will include Shanghai Disneyland; two themed hotels; 500,000 square feet of retail and entertainment venues; a lake; and parking and transportation hubs. Also expected to open next year is the multiuse Green Valley development on the former World Expo site. The cutting-edge, environmentally friendly project will feature a mix of offices, retail and social venues among hanging gardens and naturally lit atria.

Though it doesn’t have the cultural cache of Beijing or Shanghai, China’s third-largest city, Guangzhou, is intent upon transforming itself in the coming decade from the “world’s workshop” of cheap clothing and toys to a center of high-value production. As part of a larger goal to make the financial industry account for 12 percent of Guangzhou’s gross domestic product by 2020, the city gave new life to its old bankers’ row in 2012. Designated the Bund Financial Street, the private financial avenue houses more than 30 firms dealing in investment, securities and venture capital.

Progressively taking shape in an undeveloped area of Guangzhou about 15 miles from Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, a joint project between provincial authorities and the government of Singapore aims to shift Guangdong Province’s economy from labor-intensive industry to knowledge-intensive industry. (Many factories are already moving to countries with cheaper labor, such as Indonesia, and provincial officials predict that in a decade or two, only 10 percent of the current factories in Guangdong will remain.)

Called the Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, the 47-square-mile city will give priority to information and communication technologies, biotechnology, science and creative industries. The SSGKC will be built over the next 20 years and is expected to house more than 500,000 people when fully completed. With an initial investment of $640 million, developers hope to draw talented workers from China and abroad with services including two new hospitals, a cancer research center and high-speed rail links.

Guangzhou Railway Station © Huating | Dreamstime.com

This year, Guangzhou is completing a 112-mile-per-hour rail link to Hong Kong, reducing commute times between the two cities to just one hour. As a result of eased travel restrictions, tourism and business travel to the nearby city surged in the past decade, with mainland visitors to Hong Kong now outnumbering tourists from all other countries combined. Increased integration with China helped Hong Kong’s economy, which is ranked the world’s freest, to recover from the global economic crisis more quickly than observers anticipated, and its stock market is still considered the premier market for Chinese firms seeking to list abroad.

However, the Special Administrative Region is entering an unusually troubled period politically as it prepares for the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive in 2017. China promises the election will be determined by universal suffrage for the first time since the former British colony was handed over to mainland China in 1997. Many pro-democracy politicians believe the elections will be rigged to exclude pro-democracy candidates and have begun a civil movement called Occupy Central to advocate for a truly democratic election.

Beijing stated it will have the final say regardless of the vote, and no doubt any movements toward political and economic reform will be gradual throughout the country. But as income gaps continue to widen and manufacturing to slow, the nation’s leaders indicate that they will do whatever is necessary — from cracking down on corruption to letting market forces play a bigger role — to continue China’s three-decades-long success story.