Global growth threat posed by China's structural economic shift
Mainland seen as biggest risk to world economic well-being following industrial, trade flow shifts
Structural shifts in international trade flows and industrial activity have likely turned China into the single biggest threat to global economic stability.
Twin reports within 24 hours of each other from two of the world's biggest financial institutions - banking giant HSBC and global money manager Standard Life Investments - point to the mainland as their common denominator of risk to world economic well-being.
"A hard landing in China would obviously be a large negative shock for the global economy," Jeremy Lawson, Standard Life's chief economist wrote in his third-quarter economic outlook for clients.
"The epicentres of the economy's problems are the industrial and property sectors," Lawson said, before adding trade to his list of concerns.
Trade is what stands out most to economists at HSBC in their attempts to figure out why a recovery in goods shipments to the United States and European Union in recent months have not delivered a customary revival for Asian exporters - and left a US$3 trillion hole in global trade flows.
"China's cooling economy, now a vast market for exporters in its own right, is partly to blame," assert HSBC economists Qu Hongbin and Frederic Neumann in their joint third-quarter economic outlook.