1. The country has grown at around 10% a year for over 30 years. It is now phenomenally richer. A growth rate of 5% on $10,000 per head is a lot bigger actual increase than a growth rate of 10% of $1,000 dollars
2. China has a massive surplus of exports over imports.
3. China has trillions of dollars of reserves of foreign currency
4. China doesn't buy a lot of European products at the moment. UK trade with the EU is massively more significant. The UK could easily survive problems that existed just in China.
5. A stock market crash doesn't always cause problems for the actual economy. It is only numbers on a screen and pain for investors until it impacts on the willingness of banks to lend, people to spend or companies to invest.
6. China has a powerful state with the determination to intervene and try to moderate the impact of changes in the free market. When demand slows it can cut interest rates and increase investment.
7. A drop in demand for raw materials and oil might give us a fraction more breathing space before we wreck the planet.
8. The Chinese stock market has always been very volatile. That hasn't caused major problems so far.
9. At several times recently China has had more of a problem over shortage of labour than shortage of demand
10. There is plenty of capacity for Chinese consumers to increase their purchases of goods especially as a great many of them are made within the country.
Ten reasons why you should panic
1. When there is panic in the stock market then it can spread. If panic moves to concerns about China's banks then they are very vulnerable. The last thing the world needs is a fresh bout of banking collapses.
2. Chinese local government and many Chinese enterprises have borrowed a lot of money very quickly. If banks need to get that money back then local governments could start to go bankrupt. Some of the infrastructure projects were not that clever.
3. It is ordinary people who own a lot of the Chinese shares. If they blame the government then there could be a period of political change. An increase in democratic control could be very healthy. An increase in chaos would not be. Ask the Syrians.
4. Low oil prices encourage the use of fossil fuels and make long term planning to invest in a change to a low energy economy less attractive financially. This change does, of course, remain every bit as urgent for environmental reasons.
5. The Chinese government is still not very familiar with how markets really work. It demonstrated great naivety in assuming it could stop a mass panic by simply banning people from selling shares and by spending over $500bn of government money on buying declining shares. There is no telling what clumsy actions it could take.
6. Panic has no borders. As we saw in 2008 a panic starting in one country quickly moves to another.
7. Nothing serious has been done to protect the us all from the impact of global market movements. There is no international organisation that is currently capable of exerting any serious control or management over wild free market movements. We are dependent on the hope that the free market will sort everything out. As we know from 2008 it doesn't always do so. Sometimes it needs a lot of help from governments.
8. The international banking system and finance system are still very nervous after 2008. Memories may be short but market traders have lived through one collapse and know that it isn't wise to be the last person to sell. When there is a panic on and everyone else is selling confidence quickly gets lost.
9. The only thing that supports the value of your home is confidence. If that goes the price collapses.
10. And, if you want to be really scared, the only thing that supports the value of your money is also confidence. If a bank can collapse then so can a currency. That way lies empty cash points and food queues.
There are those who believe that the second set of factors will cause a collapse and that this will inevitably usher in the socialist ecological revolution. I don't. Chaos isn't the same thing as a conscious positive programme of change.
Let us all hope that the first set of factors triumphs over the second and that our own government uses any breathing space to try and contribute to fixing the structural problems in the world economy instead of preaching austerity and hoping 2008 won't happen again!