China is likely to experience a major economic or political crisis as it attempts to maintain the momentum of reform, according to Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Sachs.
The country is facing financial problems which could be eased by a gradual devaluation of the yuan, but in the longer term 'daunting tasks' pose potential problems which could threaten stability, he told the South China Morning Post.
'I think the big problem is that there is a good chance of a very, very deep crisis in China between here and success,' Mr Sachs said.
'Whether that crisis is mainly political or mainly economic, or most likely a combination of the two, is open to question.
'But what China has as its objectives is about the hardest thing in the world and these are modernisation, democratisation, openness and the economic transformation of a civilisation,' he said after addressing a conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston.
Premier Zhu Rongji has been highly successful in pushing the pace of reform and defied many foreign critics who believed the process would stumble in the mid-1990s.
