The rise of China

That said, there is nothing small about China's achievements or ambitions. As Vogel said, "China has undergone a great change and will continue undergoing a great change."

From a poor country isolated by the West, to the world's second-largest economy and leading engine of growth, as well as a global leader in innovation and a major player in international affairs, no other country in human history has achieved this much within 70 years.

Among key catalysts for the economic miracle were re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States in 1979, and joining the World Trade Organization in 2001. Since the reform and opening-up, the once-nonexistent private sector now contributes more than 60 percent of China's GDP growth.

Over the past four decades, China has recorded an average annual GDP growth rate of 9.5 percent, doubling its economy almost every eight years, and lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty, accounting for over 70 percent of the global total. Last year its GDP per capita neared $9,700, a 70-fold increase from 1952.

It is now the world's second-largest importer of goods and services, and has the world's biggest market, with the fastest-growing middle income population.

"It's easy to forget how much progress China has made. I have only to look at the photographs of my trip to realize the extraordinary accomplishments of the Chinese people," Szonyi said, recalling his stay with a family of five in East China's Fujian province in the 1990s.

"If you only visit the CBD (Central Business District) in Beijing or the Pudong in Shanghai, it's hard to realize and understand the transformation in people's lives," he said.

The wealthier Chinese are purchasing vast numbers of smartphones, designer clothes and new cars, at home and abroad. Interestingly, US media reported earlier this month that the consumption of pork across China has risen from 55 pigs per 1,000 people in 1961 to 501 pigs per 1,000 people in 2017.

In September, Chinese buyers completed deals to purchase a considerable scale of soybeans and pork from the United States, also seen as a sign of reconciliation in the drawn-out trade frictions.

Perhaps another example of China's emerging from a life of shortages to one of abundance and joy would be that today there are more movie screens in China than in the United States, and by 2035, China aims to annually release 100 films that each earn more than $15 million.

Chinatowns across the world are also evolving and modernizing to accommodate a new generation of well-educated, highly skilled Chinese immigrants. Flushing, a section of Queens, for example, has become one of the fastest-growing areas in all of New York City.

"The Chinese power will rise, and we are going to have to accommodate that," Nye said, calling China's continued ascent a natural process that the United States should be able to manage.