From The Washington Post:

Three members of the Bush Cabinet are here today, trying to patch up economic relations. It’s not going to be easy. In conversations in China this past week, I heard the muddle-through-uneasily forecast. And I heard the downward-spiral theory.

The downward spiral starts with China’s cooling economy. Slower growth is expected to bring a tripling of China’s trade surplus this year, triggering more friction with Congress. But the downward spiral is more than just a cyclical forecast. It’s about Chinese savings and investment.