Nation's innovation strength, speed hailed

Echoing Janssens' view, Simon Lacey, founder of Market Access X, an international trade and market access advisory firm, said his confidence in China over the next five years comes less from the size of its market than from the pace of innovation.

He said what is difficult to replicate elsewhere is the speed at which products are iterated and improved in China, supported by the country's strong research and talent base.

"If I had to put China's importance in one sentence, it has gone from the place you went to make things cheaply to the place you have to be to stay at the frontier," Lacey said.

That shift, economists said, is ultimately about more than innovation itself. It is about the ability to turn technological progress into stronger industrial capability.