Michael Mandel for the Progressive Policy Institute: Most economists, if they have put any thought into a Chinese economic collapse, believe that the government will deflate the currency and ramp up exports to get out of trouble.

But that simply misses the nature of the Chinese economy. In recent years. China has been a massive machine for importing components in other countries, assembling them in China and shipping them abroad. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, roughly one-third of the value of Chinese exports consists of “foreign value-added,” meaning imported components and the like.