"It is not surprising from the West that we would regard China as a monolithic entity, but for those who know China know very much that a lot of the traditional and innovative market growth has come from the coastal regions," said Bryson.

"The question for the sustainable development of China is the ability of the interior to match that rate of growth, and this has been crucial," he added.

Coastal provinces have traditionally relied on migrant labor from the interior, driven by poor work options there.

However, this is changing, said Bryson, because of the convergence in the competitiveness of China's regions which is "partly associated with an improvement of the productivity in the interior but also with a relative improvement in the labor costs of those areas."

This lessens the chances of a two-speed China, with the interior regions lagging behind the coastal regions. "That would lead to social unrest and industrial disputes," said Bryson.

It is the sort of development which would underpin sustainable growth across the whole of China, Bryson said.