Martin Jacques predicts China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 in his book When China Rules The World. Liu Zhe / China Daily

Author looks ahead to the time when China will dominate the world

Martin Jacques finds himself in the unusual position of being something of a celebrity in China. His book When China Rules The World, which examines the implications of China overtaking the United States as the world's largest economy, has sold 150,000 copies and has achieved the most success in the country whose rise he foretells.

"Not bad, is it?" he quips. "When I come to China people talk to me about the book; lots of people have read it. It is different from anywhere else I have been to in the West. People say to me: 'You know you are famous in China.'"

Jacques, who almost has the air of an alternative comedian, was his usual jaunty self even though it was only 8 am, having agreed to do an interview in his expansive hotel room.

CNN was on in the background and he was debating with our photographer whether he should wear a tie for the pictures (he didn't).

"I don't normally wear one but I am wearing one for the conference I am attending," he says.

When China Rules the World is one of the most successful books on China that have been published in recent years.

It predicts China will overtake the US as the world's largest economy by 2027 and that it will be double its size by 2050.

The book focuses more on the cultural and political implications of this and looks at whether the rest of the world will become more Chinese as a result.

The world has become used to the term Western being synonymous with being modern and advanced but Jacques argues by the end of the 21st Century that may no longer be the case: Chinese tea shops may by then be more common than McDonald's across the world.