O'Neill said China's sustainable growth is also aided by the country's increased urbanization, its welcoming of foreign direct investment, and embrace of technological change.

"I think it is really wise that China has welcomed foreign direct investment, which allowed the country to understand and learn from some of the world's greatest industries for the benefit of China," he said.

"It becomes more and more apparent in this decade that China is not scared. In fact, it deliberately tries very hard to embrace modern technologies."

He also commended President Xi Jinping's concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind, saying that is probably the most important value Chatham House aspires to.

"I think they want someone like me as a chairman, to help during these challenging times to do just what Xi has suggested on a Chinese basis and translate it to the world, help to foster and sustain it throughout the world," he said.

O'Neill is well known for having coined the term "BRIC" in 2001 as a way to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China as a group of nations at a similar stage of development that promised to be the economic powerhouses of the future. South Africa was added nine years later, creating the term BRICS.

"When I coined the term BRIC in 2001, I still remember China was heavily dependent on low-value-added exports and not too developed, but I recalled that China played a huge role in helping solve the Asian (financial) crisis indirectly in 1997-98, which is why I immediately saw China at the center of the BRIC concept," he said.

China has been the best-performing BRICS member in the past 17 years, with the size of its economy now double that of the other BRICS countries combined.

O'Neill said he expects India's GDP to grow more rapidly than China's in the years ahead because it is at the same stage of development China was at 20 years ago.