China officially replaced Japan as the world's second-largest economy this week, and is expected to leapfrog the United States in 2020 to become the world leader. However, "how it got to No.2 will be very different from the path it must take to become No 1," suggests a column in the Singaporean newspaper the Strait Times.

China has made the world's most remarkable economic progress in the past three decades with its breakneck double-digit growth and helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty and into a more than decent life. There is no doubt about it. But problems remain.

Apart from being the world's largest exporter, China is also "the largest source of low-end goods as well as of counterfeit and pirated wares, and the largest energy consumer and producer of carbon emissions." Moreover, China is also paying a hefty price for "pollution, over-reliance on exports and international distrust about its product safety and intellectual rights," despite the high growth rates, the article points out.

To redress its "unsteady, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable" growth, as some Chinese officials say, and to change its development model, the article points to "boosting domestic consumption, energy-efficient manufacturing and higher-end industries such as green technology," "encouraging indigenous innovation," "creating improved social safety nets," and establishing a more just system of wealth distribution, among other things, as key to China's development in the next 10 years.

To achieve these goals and to reach the very top, the article concludes, China will need "more finesse and a keener sense of balance than its swift charge to No 2."