Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with Britain's Prince William at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 2, 2015. President Xi told the royal he was looking forward to visiting the United Kingdom, at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II.（Photo/CNS）

President Xi Jinping will visit UK from October 19 to 23 on a State Visit hosted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The visit will be full of significance as two great civilizations make formal contact as the two nations explore a new and deeper relationship.

Over the last 60 plus years the 48 Group has seen many contacts and many changes in the Sino-British relationship, but none so significant and deep as those of the last short few years.

Since Chancellor George Osborne visited China in 2012 and Prime Minister David Cameron visited China the next year, we have seen a big transformation of the bilateral relationship.

Why has this happened and what might happen ahead?

In China they talk about the New Normal, the Chinese Dream, and the Silk Roads, as the new banks – AIIB and the New Development Bank – emerge onto regional scenes. China is in a major transformation towards being a moderately successful economy by 2049 with prosperity spread reasonably across the nation, and a common prosperity spread across Asia towards Europe and Africa.

China is on course to become the world’s largest economy, respecting the traditional world of the West and its institutions, and enabling a new relevant growth model to take hold in Asia to enable sustainable growth that really takes into account the environment, resources and proper aspirations for the lives and security of the peoples of Asia.

China established its core base from 1978 on the basis of low cost exports and a move to take the peasants from the land into being town and city residents, creating a whole new service sector to enable this transformation.

Now China, as an Asian nation, is moving to transform itself and its neighbours into a sustainable model based on modern transportation, energy and communications across the whole continent and spreading throughout Eurasia.

But for China the Europe part of Eurasia is to work with but is a different area where Russia and the E.U. and other centres of power operate. China wants to open up links and economic development to Lisbon, Cornwall, Hamburg and Copenhagen in the West to Vladivostok, Beijing and Vietnam and Thailand in the east. From Capetown in the South to Helsinki in the North, and throughout South Asia.

China will lead the transportation development of high speed trains and highways and canals across this whole region with $8-10 trillion being invested from global and regional sources over the next 10 – 15 years.

This development succeeds with the active involvement of the west and with huge benefits to the west. China wants to create the best. Their high speed trains are based on technologies of Siemens and other companies, and so in every field leading western companies can play the key role.

This is where the UK can strike such an important role. The RMB will emerge alongside the dollar as the two key reserve currencies for the region, and London can play an important and pivotal role as it changes its approach to world markets to enhance its own financial centre.

The UK can gain huge benefits from Chinese investment in the UK, but also from being China’s partner in developing the new Silk roads and the Western end of the new continent of Eurasia.

And within China the new Free Trade Zones suggest how open the Chinese economy will be in the future as China becomes increasingly a part of the global economy – China is in the world and the world is in China.

But the Chinese Dream suggests that China will be more like Denmark than the USA, and that its social values will take from its deep history.

China wants to influence the world but does not want the world to be Chinese.

Now is the time when the 22nd century is being borne. China has that vision and we can enquire and probe it. We can take the cue and develop our own 22nd century vision and ensure that we work together to a sustainable, secure and prosperous next century. But to do that we must lift our game to the long as well as the short term.

President xi’s visit is ceremonial, it is about a developing ease of relations, but it is also about a look into the future.

The author is the Chairman of the 48 Group Club，a high profile business network committed to promoting positive links with China. The Club focuses on helping business and others understand China.