While the financial and business world continue to hang on every twist and turn in eurozone politics, I think the biggest issue for the world in 2012 will be whether China can successfully manage a soft landing.
In recent years, China has become crucial to the world economy: in 2011, it probably added around $1tn in US dollar terms alone, equivalent to creating half of a new Italy. Since the 2008 global credit crisis, each subsequent year in China has had its particular theme: 2009 was about preventing a postcredit crisis collapse and recession; 2010 about controlling the power of the expansion; 2011 about stopping inflation rising too much.
