Michael Pettis

With a rise in US savings putting unbearable pressure on China's low consumption rate, leading to the risk of a collapse in China's ability to export its overcapacity, the question about why Chinese households save so much of their income has become more important than ever.

Everyone seems to know the answer. Chinese households save, many insist, because the Confucian culture encourages saving for the future. Saving is deeply and culturally imbedded in the Chinese psyche.

Commentary by William Pesek

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Few questions confound economists more: What might tip China into the meltdown that so many have feared for so many years?

Possibilities include overheating, social instability, corruption, pollution, debt crises, war over Taiwan and a post- Olympics growth swoon. It's a perfectly rational expectation. No rapidly industrializing nation has ever avoided some kind of crisis, least of all upstarts in Asia.