Those of you convinced we're only moments away from the Era of the Dragon, wherein we're all reduced to shining the shoes of people who really know how Chinese food is supposed to be made, may find this of interest:

I believe that the Chinese banking sector's dire straits constitute the gravest threat to global stability in the coming years ... Frankly, I believe the banking sector is too far gone to reform without collapse. In international terms, the crisis in the Chinese banks and SOEs is an elephant that stands in the middle of the room, but everyone is either perceiving it as a mouse or trying to pass it off as a mouse. I believe the Australian government is in the latter category, as are a great many others around the world.

Japan basically ignored the problem of their crippled banking industry and did manage to get away with it, although at the price of a decade of economic stagnation that represented a significant drag on world productivity in the 90s and early 2000's. But they had the advantage of a homogenous culture and a government system that allowed the citizens to replace the people in power occasionally while the rest of it sorted itself out. China doesn't have these, or really any other, advantages.

Interesting times, interesting times...