So, who’s afraid of China’s economic power?
Mention the topic in polite conversation, and chances are that you’ll hear complaints about dumping cheap products, stealing jobs and grabbing resources.
If you talk to politicians and economists, you may hear complaints that China is keeping its currency undervalued. There are worries about the size of its foreign currency reserves – currently approaching a massive $4tn (£2.55tn).
So much economic power creates fear and hostility, especially in countries like the United States during an election year, warns Richard Levin, president of Yale University.
Those worries are only bound to increase.
Rich country, poor country?
China’s economy, with its 1.3 billion people, keeps on growing rapidly, at a rate of around 10% a year. Already it is the world’s second-largest economy. Some here at the World Economic Forum in Davos wonder whether China can still be called a developing economy at all.
China’s economic growth, says Pascal Lamy, boss of the World Trade Organisation, "will bump into public perception problems".
"There is this perception that there is a Chinese official behind every Chinese business person. That China is grabbing resources. That there is a new colonial ‘something’. That they are after technology, stealing, transferring it, all these negative things that translate into [a view] that this is a country that doesn’t play by the rules."
Mr Lamy does not agree with these perceptions.
But China, he says, has to develop "a better narrative", tell the world what it really does or suffer a backlash.