The answer in short: No.

There is a level of paranoia about China, the rise, the methods, and who stands to gain and lose out of this ascent. They are an unknown quantity, an opaque figure with seemingly few friends, but an enormous and growing influence that buys a seat at any table it chooses.

I’ll take a different tack in the way I look at this. To start with, galling as it is for China, they have a lot to thank the Japanese for in their strategy. What China has done is more or less a carbon copy of what Japan did 40 or so years ago. With one critical difference that we will get to. Japan figured out very early on that manufacturing and export earns cold hard cash. The first trade deficit they had in 30 years was in 2011.

http://www.customs.go.jp/toukei/shinbun/trade-st_e/2011/2011_117e.pdf

This was as a direct result of the Fukushima eathequake and the idling of their nuclear power stations and follow on reliance on fossil fuels.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=13711

$248 billion in 2012 for fossil fuels. It isn’t hard to see why they need to restart the reactors, but thats not the point here. The point is despite the “lost decade”, Japan’s economy is still very strong, and natural disasters aside, it would have remained so. Healthy trade surpluses are healthy trade surpluses. They weren’t made a big point of in Japan, everyone seemed a bit too focused on growth rates or the lack thereof. Back to China. They have followed Japan in making their economy export driven. And its working for them. Even with the downturn in Europe and the US only now getting back on its feet, China still posts solid gains in export earnings.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/263632/trade-balance-of-china/

How much you believe that is up to you. By other measures it looks on the high side:

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/01/20/what-chinas-electricity-usage-says-about-growth/

Li Keqiang  (Chinese Premier) said in 2007 that the GDP figures are “Man-Made” and for “reference only”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-13/china-economic-data-questioned-as-electricity-use-slows.html

So its hard to draw a solid conclusion, and will get even harder as China’s economy slows – local governments are told to reach a figure, but no one knows how they do it – borrowing, debt fuelled construction, who knows, the figures are not available, and what is seems questionable.

So to go back to the subject line – will China crash – we need to draw in 2 more points before making any conclusion. Firstly is who owns the businesses in China that export, and secondly demographics and cost-of-manufacture and how this is changing. No mention of debt levels, shadow banking industry or corruption – thats in another post.

Ok, so who owns the industry in China – the exporters are generally not Chinese brands, with a few big exceptions. Apple, Nike, Sony, Toyota, etc, all use Chinese labour. But they dont HAVE to, they use it simply because the cost is cheaper. There are very few Chinese name brands – Huawei, Lenovo and Haier are among the few exceptions. As wages in China rise, the very thing that China offered to the world vanishes – cheap labour. And its unfortunate that the world regards China as a factory to make its goods for it, but the jump to a “knowledge Economy” and a move away from manufacturing is very difficult to do in practise. It cannot be done quickly. And it makes for massive inequality along the way. Factory workers are the backbone of an economy. Certainly true in China’s case. But the squeeze is on for China – on one hand rising wages, and on the other hand non-Chinese brands who will move if the price is not right. Stratfor has posted about the 16 countries identified as follow-ons for China, the “PC-16”

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/pc16-identifying-chinas-successors

One quote from that report “The arcs along which nations rise and fall vary in length and slope. China’s has been long, as far as these things go, lasting for more than 30 years. The country will continue to exist and perhaps prosper, but this era of Chinese development — pyramiding on low wages to conquer global markets — is ending simply because there are now other nations with even lower wages and other advantages. China will have to behave differently from the way it does now, and thus other countries are poised to take its place.” – it makes for interesting reading, even if you dont agree with it.

And the final point before the conclusion is drawn – demographics.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/20/china-next-generation-ageing-population

This is a problem that many countries are facing, but will likely hit China much harder than others. The “one child” policy and the lack of immigration are going to put massive strain on the country as the population gradually ages. This has to be tackled now, and they are starting to relax the one Child Policy in the latest 5 year plan. As in Japan’s case, immigration on a large scale will be avoided at all costs.

So – conclusion – will China crash? Up until now China has had a good run, and the west has a lot to thank China for, but the pressures are steadily mounting – growth is slowing, population is aging and wages and costs are rising. To add to this, local governments are now saddled with mountains of debt and there is corrption on a grand scale.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/29/zhou-yongkang-china-profile

For a taste of how far the corruption goes there.

So for now, China wont crash in any major way, but it is likely to slow a lot more.

It will still be an important player on the world stage, I doubt it will ever reach no.1.