The country has managed 9.9% growth on average over the past 35 years, but Prof Pettis thinks that the growth rate will fall to a measly (by Chinese standards) 3% this decade. The more gung-ho Economist by contrast was forecasting that China would stay on course to overtake the US as the world's biggest economy by 2018. The Bear Michael Pettis is a finance professor at the Guanghua Management School "China has grown very rapidly in the last 30 years, but it has been following a model that is not unique," says Prof Pettis. "In the 50s and 60s almost everyone 'knew' that the Soviet Union would overtake the US in the 70s - even Jack Kennedy - but it didn't happen. Instead, the Russian economy got mired in debt and years of stagnation." Other examples include the Brazilian economic "miracle" of the 1960s and 1970s, says Prof Pettis, that ended in a 1982 financial crisis and a "lost decade" of growth, or Japan's rapid ascent up until its own 1990 crisis and subsequent two-decade stagnation. What these countries have in common is an enormous level of government-led investment - in roads, trains, schools, hospitals, education and training. "You can get tremendous growth by keeping investment levels high," he explains. "And in the early days, growth is healthy and sustainable. "But later... you very easily reach a point where you can't identify economically viable projects any more, and you overshoot and start misallocating capital in a pretty significant way. That's