It almost seems like a game. Businesspeople, financial analysts and, yes, journalists sometimes appear to compete with one another to identify the biggest weakness in China's economy. What will make it hit the buffers, they ask? Where are the biggest risks?
Some talk about unsustainable bank debt. Others claim the entire banking system is rotten. Many like to say that social unrest, provincial corruption and rising levels of pollution-induced illness will bring about a collapse in the social order. There are also those who say it is the entire system of government - in other words, the battle between the free-market and the centralised system of governance - that will eventually lead to China's downfall.
Some of these commentators may be right, though most have sounded the same warnings for rather too long. They are also mostly the views of outsiders, of those squinting at China through Western lenses. They seem to be held by those who secretly hope for a crisis, just for the pleasure of watching it unfold from the sidelines, perhaps even to gain from the fallout.
One of the most popular theories of the 'there is trouble coming in China' devotees is the one about economic growth. These gloom pundits see the signs of slowing growth and predict trouble ahead. Fewer jobs and insufficient new investment will create political pressures that the Communist Party will be unable to resist, say those who subscribe to this idea. China needs to maintain fast growth for stability, you see. Without growth, the economy and society will go off the rails.
Looking further ahead, the most popular theory concerns innovation, or rather the lack of it. Without more creativity, those with the black-tinted spectacles say, China's economy will stall. The seeds of failure are not just planted but already sprouting, for all to see, through the barren soil of ideas. But the doom-sayers are wrong on both of these counts.
China's slowing rate of growth may not be a problem at all. It may even be welcome. The pace of economic expansion is certainly going to fall this year, and sharply, to something around 7 per cent or 8 per cent. This is much lower than the heady 10 per cent or 11 per cent of a few years ago. While the Chinese economy's rate of progress will remain multiples ahead of almost every other country in the world, it is likely to fall even further next year.