The China Syndrome Bites Back | Post Carbon Institute

"One: China has subsidized its economic development by destroying its environment on an unparalleled scale and this will start to compromise its ability to keep growing fast, even without the looming global economic depression. The Chinese leadership appear to know this and show signs of being very worried. China has in many ways become the eastern anchor of globalization, and yanking it up, will cause even more global economic destabilization.

Two: a lot of the Chinese manufacturing export channels that have been built up so fast are collapsing, and some will not return soon or at all. Where the Chinese have been making absolutely vital goods for the West, there will be real pain until alternatives supply chains are rebuilt more locally. This will be no easy task in this climate of frightened and constrained capital. In many respects, it will require the rebuilding of the American and British manufacturing economies (less so the European), along with the supply chains to feed it and the return of the knowledge and skills to recreate it and run it."