For this year, people want to know whether China will grow at 8 per cent, the magic number deemed necessary to ensure social stability. That is the wrong question. China will grow at 8 per cent if its statisticians say so. Even if the pain of lower growth is felt on the ground, one isolated year of slowdown is unlikely to spark the popular rebellion some imagine. China's population still believes its government can deliver strong growth in the long run. Only if there were a number of years of sharply lower growth are there likely to be more than isolated disturbances.
A bigger question is: where does Chinese growth now come from? The huge stimulus package may rev up the impressive construction boom, but there is no guarantee that people will buy property until they think prices have bottomed out. That could mean excess capacity and a double-dip slowdown.
The world's workshop has also grown far too dependent on a US and European spending binge that is now over. Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach says exports as a percentage of gross domestic product have risen from 20 per cent in 1997 to 40 per cent. It rode the huge, credit-fuelled demand surge beautifully. Now it will have to find other sources of growth. Personal consumption as a percentage of GDP has been in structural decline. At about one-third of GDP, that is not enough to sustain domestic momentum let alone credibly substitute for US demand, as some fantasise.