John Naisbitt

Naisbitt, who has been studying China for more than 30 years and has visited the country more than 100 times, said Western China experts and pundits approach China with preconceived notions that prevent them from grasping the emergence of a new social system.

"Our understanding of China is quite different from that of other people. Western people in particular try to understand China through the Western values and through Western eyes; We try to understand China through Chinese eyes, from the inside out."

Comparing the Western and Chinese social systems to differently designed trains, Naisbitt said, "In many ways the Chinese train has become a better train and this is something that is incomprehensible to the West. They block it out and they don't want to know any more about it because they resent it at some level."

"The whole world can learn about building trains by taking a ride, as we have, on the China train.

"You don't have to get the model from the West. We have a new model for a social, economic system, society, and that new model is China."

Naisbitt denounced what he called "China-bashing" in the Western media and said it resulted from a combination of fear of China's growing power and envy of the country's economic success.