Moreover, much of the country's growth has so far benefited companies, rather than households. That's one of the downsides of a low-cost business model. Exports and corporate profits have surged, but low wages have generally depressed private consumption and created social stresses.

It's no surprise then that the government is now aggressively trying to address these imbalances, by lifting minimum wages and improving working conditions. The focus on raising wages and preventing job losses is one reason China has yet to revalue its currency, as critics have demanded, and why it is likely to resist such calls in the future.

Fifth, structural-growth drivers are as important as cyclical ones. The liberalization of China's housing industry in 1998, for instance, explains much of the country's surging growth. Until then, the state provided most of the housing stock. But reforms allowed households to buy bigger and better homes, and property developers built them.

It might be that the structural drivers are now being overwhelmed by cyclical ones and that China is experiencing a housing bubble no different from those of the U.K. and U.S. If so, the bears will soon be proven right as the bubble bursts and China's decade-long boom will be brought to a screeching halt. But if the bears are proven wrong, it will be because of the emergence of new structural drivers.

Urbanization is one such driver. Some analysts say China's urban population will grow by 15 million people annually over the next 10 years, implying an extra 5 million apartments annually -- a huge source of demand.

Services are another. China's manufacturing is still the largest driver of growth, but there are the early signs of an emerging services sector, from car rental to cinema multiplexes.

Eoin Treacy's view China has made incredible economic progress in a relatively short period of time by leveraging its massive population to become the world's low margin manufacturing hub. This has led to rising standards of living for hundreds of millions of people but much remains to be done if China's development ambitions are to be attained.

China's economy currently relies heavily on exports and capital expenditure, especially on infrastructure development. This has resulted in over capacity in some areas of production, particularly steel, and transportation infrastructure that is competitive with many technically advanced countries.

The cost / benefit of spending even more on new roads, railways and airports is no longer competitive with the benefits that can be gained from spending on increasing healthcare coverage and widening the social security net. Progress on these fronts should help to free up the Chinese population's massive savings and increase domestic demand for consumer goods.

China is rapidly moving up the value chain in terms of manufacturing. In addition the outperformance of consumer related sectors reflects the gradual rebalancing of investor attention to these areas. If China is successful in diversifying the focus of its economic growth then there is every chance that it will eventually succeed in achieving its ambition of becoming a truly significant global superpower with the economic prowess one would associate with such a position.