Michael Mandel believes that China may very well be hit the hardest by the global recession:
The question now is whether China, and more generally the trade surplus countries of East Asia, are going to play the role of the U.S., as acted out in 1929 and the years that followed...I think there’s a very good chance that by this time next year, the economic damage in China will be worse than in the U.S.
And that could lead to the biggest political impact of the downturn: we could have very serious unrest in China. Even Russia, with a bit of luck.