When the global financial storm began to gather a year ago, China appeared to be a nation that was well supplied with raincoats. The economy was growing at double-digit rates, Chinese banks had little overseas exposure to the credit crisis, and the country's $1.9 trillion in hard-currency reserves stood as a vast emergency fund that could be drawn upon in the event of trouble. Just two months ago, while giant Wall Street and European banks were crumbling, China was relishing its role as host of the Olympic Games as the world paid tribute to its years of remarkable, seemingly unstoppable economic progress.

    The raincoats, it turns out, have holes in them. With the chances for a global recession increasing, it's becoming clear that not even the world's fastest-growing major economy can avoid a pronounced slowdown. Any remaining hopes to the contrary were dashed recently when China's National Bureau of Statistics released the country's latest economic data: in the third quarter, GDP growth had slipped to 9%, the slowest quarterly pace since 2003. Meanwhile, estimates for 2009 growth are being slashed to as low as 8%, which would be a dramatic deceleration from last year's 12% rate and would rank as China's worst results since 1999.

    It's pretty clear why China is hitting the skids. The country's economic transformation over the past 25 years has led a great wave of globalization during which the mainland's once small and isolated economy became much bigger and deeply integrated into global commerce - making it more exposed to the business cycles of its big trading partners like the U.S. "The huge elephant in the China shop is the slowing global economy," says Merrill Lynch Asia economist T.J. Bond, who cites an obvious reason: China's manufacturing sector, which accounts for 43% of China's GDP, depends heavily upon sales to the West. Some 40% of China's exports go to the U.S. and Europe, and with potentially deep recessions setting in there, economists are slashing the country's trade projections. Bond estimates that China's export growth rate will fall to 10% in 2009 from 21% this year. For the revved-up mainland, that's a frightening plunge.

    A slump in exports has pretty grim implications for the country's manufacturing boomtowns, and the pain is already being felt. Stanley Lau, deputy chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, estimates that export orders at some 70,000 factories owned by Hong Kong companies in southern China have declined 5%-10% this year compared with 2007. Recent months have seen a first wave of bankruptcies and closures among the tens of thousands of factories in industrial zones from Guangzhou to Shanghai that make toys, jeans and PCs bound for U.S. retailers.

    Chinese manufacturers are particularly vulnerable to a recession right now because of higher labor and commodities costs and because of the simple fact that China's boom resulted in the creation of far more factories than global demand could possibly support in a cyclical downturn. A shakeout is unavoidable, and it is being made worse by the worldwide credit crunch. Nervous banks, Lau says, have reduced the credit lines of many small manufacturers by up to 50%, starving them of operating funds. Letters of credit, which facilitate the shipment of exports, were once automatically accepted by banks in Hong Kong, but now they are being held until bankers are sure funds are coming from overseas, so payments to manufacturers for their products are being delayed. As a result, Lau says he expects that 20% of China's Hong Kong–owned factories, which employ 10 million people, could be shut down by early next year. That's a big concern to government officials, who will be hard-pressed to cope with a growing army of newly unemployed migrant workers. When Hong Kong toymaker Smart Union abruptly closed its doors in mid-October, hundreds of angry ex-employees crowded outside its shuttered factory in Guangdong province demanding unpaid wages. Says Lau: "I worry that the situation can't be improved."

    With global growth expected to slow further in coming months, the pressures facing manufacturers certainly will increase. Some Chinese companies are giving up their export businesses entirely. Shi Junmin, CEO of Pinghu Mingda Bag and Suitcases Co. in Zhejiang province near Shanghai, had been selling suitcases to U.S. customers since 2006. He stopped in June. Orders were still flowing in from America, but clients, strained by the financial crisis, were not paying him, Shi says. By midyear, he says, he was owed some $3 million. Shi instead shifted to manufacturing luggage for local China brands, hoping domestic sales could rescue his company. "We just ran out of money to buy materials to manufacture our own," Shi complains. "Processing for domestic factories is our only option."

    Counting on Chinese consumers, however, may not be a sure bet. Some economists had thought that increasingly wealthy Chinese, with their appetite for cars, mobile phones and Big Macs, could help fill the breach opened by retreating American spenders. But that hope, too, is fading. Though Chinese spending is so far holding up - retail sales of consumer goods jumped 23% in September - household consumption, at only 40% of GDP （compared with about 65% in industrialized countries）, isn't yet substantial enough to maintain China's high growth rates. "I don't think [domestic spending] will replace what has been lost in exports," says UBS economist Wang Tao. Nor will it offset another weakening pillar of China's economy: real estate. Rampant construction of new office towers and apartment blocks in recent years was a huge boon to growth. But government action to cool down the market, by, for example, restricting credit for property development, is resulting in a sharp falloff in construction. After 35% growth in real estate investment in the first half of the year, Wang estimates that growth dropped sharply to some 20% in July and August. The property sector accounts for about a quarter of all fixed-asset investment in China and about 10% of national employment. A slump could drag down other sectors like steel production. "Beijing cannot afford a collapse in the housing market," wrote Jing Ulrich, chairman of China equities for JPMorgan, in a recent note to investors.

    The Chinese government has quickly awakened to the threat of a sharp slowdown. Until a few months ago, Beijing's top priority had been fighting inflation. Now policymakers are easing off the brakes and hitting the gas again in an effort to stimulate growth. The central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate twice in the past 45 days, the first cuts since 2002. In mid-October, the State Council announced plans to increase infrastructure spending, to offer tax rebates for exporters and to boost government-controlled prices for agricultural products. Beijing is also widely expected to introduce measures to resuscitate the faltering property market, in an attempt to prevent a U.S.-style crash in home prices. The government announced on Oct. 22 that it would waive taxes on certain property deals to spur flagging sales.

    Government action could shield the Chinese economy from the worst of a global slump. Indeed, economists currently say China ought to remain a relatively bright spot amid the economic gloom. Merrill Lynch estimates that China will account for 40% of world GDP growth in 2009. Continued strong Chinese demand for raw materials, machinery and consumer goods is expected to prop up other Asian economies - the region as a whole is projected to dodge a recession next year.

    But even when growing at a double-digit rate, China's economy is not yet large enough by itself to keep the global economy surging. The country accounts for only about 5% of total world GDP; the U.S. is responsible for 28%. "China's strength can help," says UBS's Wang, "but it's not enough to save the world." China may be lucky just to save itself.

    一年前當(dāng)全球金融風(fēng)暴開始席卷，中國似乎早已備好安度的雨衣。經(jīng)濟(jì)正以兩位數(shù)的速率在增長，中國的銀行在海外少有信貸危機(jī)而且國家擁有190億美金硬通貨作為緊急儲備金可以用來擺脫困境。就在兩個月前，當(dāng)華爾街金融巨頭和歐洲銀行界正瀕臨崩解，中國正津津有味的以東道主的身份開著奧運會就像是世界為向它這象征性的一年獻(xiàn)禮，表面上看來似乎經(jīng)濟(jì)永不停止的增長。

    然而雨衣最終也有漏洞。隨著全球經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退的加劇，可以很明顯的看到即便是世上增長最快的經(jīng)濟(jì)也無法避免降速。最近當(dāng)中國國家統(tǒng)計局公布最新的經(jīng)濟(jì)數(shù)據(jù)時那些逆勢增長的僅存夢想也破滅了：在第三季度，國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值已經(jīng)下滑9%,是自2003年以來最慢的季度增長。同時，2009年的增長評估也正削減至8%,與去年12%的比率相比大幅減速也是中國自1999年以來最差的記錄。

    中國倒霉的原因很明顯。過去25年的經(jīng)濟(jì)轉(zhuǎn)型引發(fā)了一場全球化浪潮，在這期間大陸原先狹小封閉的經(jīng)濟(jì)型式已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)變的壯大并深入整型至全球商業(yè)中并參與到像美國這樣的大的合作伙伴的商業(yè)圈內(nèi)。"中國商店里的巨頭就是正在下滑的全球經(jīng)濟(jì)"美林。林奇這樣說道。亞洲經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家T.J Bond指出了明顯的原因：中國的制造業(yè)占據(jù)了中國國內(nèi)生產(chǎn)總值的43%嚴(yán)重依賴向西方國家的出口。40%的中國產(chǎn)品銷往美國和歐洲，在那兒發(fā)生了潛在的經(jīng)濟(jì)衰退，經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家正在削減國家的貿(mào)易計劃。Bond預(yù)測中國在2009年出口增長額將會從今年的21%下降至10%.對于經(jīng)濟(jì)一直快速增長的國家這將是一個令人恐懼的猛跌。