Yeah, their ability to replace US/developed nation demand with internal demand in order to allow the RMB to float freely will be interesting. As it is now, a lot of their growth is based on government spending and some creative financial engineering with debt (similar to Fed and containment of toxic mortgage assets) and currency manipulation intended to create a huge domestic manufacturing base.

I think, complicating this, is the implicit social contract between the govt and the populace regarding economic growth and jobs. As flawed as the US system is, it is (purely IMO) a more fault tolerant - in a dynamic systems/perturbation sense - than Chinese society.