Of all the challenges facing a new generation of Chinese leaders expected to be anointed next month, inheriting a vibrant economy growing nearly eight percent a year would seem one of the easier ones.
However, experts warn that there are a number of clouds on the horizon for the world's fastest-expanding major economy, and that tough efforts are needed to push through a string of delayed reforms.
Ahead of the 16th Communist Party Congress beginning a week on tomorrow, at which a new generation of leaders are expected to be announced, the general economic situation looks rosy, experts agree.
In only 20 years of reforms, China has seen its once lumbering state-planned system change beyond recognition, attracting huge amounts of foreign investment as well as the wonder -- and envy -- of regional rivals.
Earlier this month Beijing announced growth of 7.9 percent thus far in 2002, a figure expected to be kept up in the coming months.
"The economic situation is very good, external factors are excellent: foreign trade, overseas investment and exchange reserves," said Pierre Letocart, the French government's chief economic representative in Beijing.
But he and others warn that risks remain.
High among these are concerns that much of the country's stellar growth is being pushed along artificially by massive government spending, and that consumer demand is lagging behind.
"The government can't continue to spend like this indefinitely to boost the economy," warned Robert Subbaraman, senior economist at Lehman Brothers in Tokyo when third quarter figures were released earlier this month, showing that state spending accounted for a fifth of all economic activity.
"It's very critical [for China] to stimulate domestic demand as well," said Morgan Stanley chief economist Stephen Roach on Tuesday, warning of continued deflationary pressures.
The other primary concern is the need to speed up laggardly reforms to a series of sectors, most notably China's debt-laden commercial banks.
"There is a worrying structural problem which runs the risk of jolts in the next three to five years," Letocart said.
China's four main commercial banks, all state-owned, are effectively insolvent by Western accounting standards due to decades of handing out easy loans to government-owned companies, billions of which was never repaid.
The banks have begun trying to get their books in order by auctioning off non-performing loans at steep discounts, but the pace of change is slowed by political considerations such as the desire not to force defaulting companies out of business.
Experts point out that in seeking to drag China, a new member of the WTO, towards a more market-based economy, China's new leaders find themselves committed to three simultaneous transformations.
These are moving from a rural- to an urban-based economy, from a closed-off to an open economy and from state planning to liberal markets.
For any country this is a challenge, but for one with 1.3 billion people to consider it seems a mountain to climb.
"The government's room for maneuver will be very narrow," counselled one diplomat in Beijing.
Experts warn that China's entry to the WTO, sealed last December, also carries its own risks, especially rising unemployment as overseas competition bites.
At particular risk are farmers, whose products are often more expensive and of lower quality than those grown on bigger-scale foreign farms.
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