A hard economic landing for China, fiscal crises in developed countries and broad asset-price collapses are the biggest risks to global stability this year and beyond, according to the World Economic Forum, which meets in Davos this month.
China is one of the biggest concerns in this year's Global Risk report, partly because of the way it has responded to the global financial crisis and partly because it is one of the only risks yet to be realised from those consistently identified in the report's five-year history.
The report has been successful in identifying the big risks in the past few years, having flagged up in 2006-2008 asset-price overvaluations, consumer over-indebtedness, oil and food price jumps and the destabilising effects of the US current account deficit.