China=Enron?

The NYTimes has a piece up right now about an investor who specializes in determining overvalued companies and situations. This investor, James Chanos, made a fortune by betting against Enron and other companies. At the same time, he's never been much of a China expert, only starting to study it last summer.

I'm torn. On the one hand, I believe that the insane amount of construction that I've seen in China cannot possibly be sustainable. On the other, I know that I'm not an economist. I find it interesting, though, that the article does not even talk about what will happen should the Chinese economy fail. It's treated merely as a business problem, without mention of the gross security implications of a stressed Chinese state. We couldn't bail China out if we wanted to, but I'm afraid that at this point China might be too essential to let crash. We'll have to see.