Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd thinks that China will play an important global role in the coming year.

Rudd, who is also the president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York, based his assessment of China's future on a rather unconventional, albeit widely popular, yardstick: the fact that 2016 is the Year of the Monkey in Chinese Astrology.

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The Chinese consider monkeys as intelligent and adventurous creatures, and by way of analogy, Chinese people tend to discuss their important policy changes before the end of the year.

Officials will be busy preparating for their 19th Party Congress in 2017. President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang will include five other members from the existing Politburo Standing Committee in that upcoming political exercise.

In addition, a large turnover is expected to take place in the Politburo and the Central Committee.

Xi inherited a leadership structure from his predecessors. He is popular for his nationwide mass campaign against corruption in the last three years, and anti-corruption efforts will remain a top agenda in the coming year as well.

He is expected to strengthen the leadership's economic team in 2016. China does need a 6 percent growth in order to provide new jobs and decrease poverty incidence.

The country also needs social stability and an increase in income. This is pushing the Chinese leaders to adopt a simple fiscal and monetary expansion.

China is currently embarking on a new diplomatic policy with Japan, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines, and the recent historic meeting between Xi and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou was lauded as proof of China's enhanced relations with its neighbors.

With a more enhanced foreign and economic policy, Xi wants to expand and fine-tune China's diplomatic relations across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, as he drives China to project an image and reputation as a global economic power.

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