Failure to act quickly on this program would leave China far too vulnerable to the inevitable next shock in a crisis-battered world. In the absence of rebalancing, any one of several potential tipping points could seriously compromise the economy’s ability to pull off another soft landing: deteriorating credit quality in the banking system; weakening export competitiveness as wages rise; key environmental, governance, and social problems (namely, pollution, corruption, and inequality); and, of course, foreign-policy missteps, as suggested by escalating problems with Japan.