CHINA'S strong economy appeared to put the nation on the global high ground when the financial tsunami first struck last month, but as the storm continues to rage, that position is looking less sure.

After five years of annual double- digit economic growth, and with more than US$1.9 trillion (S$2.8 trillion) in foreign reserves as well as a closed financial system that protected it from toxic United States assets, China seemed insulated from the crisis.

But with thousands of workers being laid off as exports shrank, the property market slowing and the stock market low on confidence, the world's fourth-biggest economy is clearly starting to hurt amid the global downturn.

'People are starting to see the pain, in business and also in the labour market. It's not as easy to get a job as it was a few months ago,' said Beijing-based World Bank economist Louis Kuijs.

'The bigger the economic crisis - the recession in the US and in Europe - the more it will be felt in China,' he said.

China's leaders, for their part, have said the country's best strategy is to keep the economy growing.

China will release its thirdquarter gross domestic product (GDP) figure today.

Its GDP growth is expected to shrink to 9.1 per cent in the third quarter from 10.1 per cent in the second, according to a forecast by Goldman Sachs.

If accurate, it would mark the first time China's quarterly GDP growth has fallen below 10 per cent since the end of 2005.

But a fall in the third-quarter figure would mostly reflect government policies to moderate growth, Goldman Sachs said, not the US crisis.

Morgan Stanley predicts full-year GDP growth will shrink to 9.8 per cent and to 8.2 per cent next year - still above the official target of 8 per cent.

But if property markets melt down across the country, the economy could see a hard landing with GDP growing less than 7 per cent, Morgan Stanley said.

Independent Shanghai-based economist Andy Xie is more pessimistic, saying a property crash is imminent because prices are too high and developers have borrowed heavily and built too much.

He points to Guangdong province - south China's economic engine - where property prices have already crashed.

The booming city of Shenzhen has experienced one of the deepest corrections, with prices down 40 per cent in August from a peak a year earlier.

'The economy is going to go through a rough patch. All these bubbly things are going to bounce back on people,' he said.

Officials said industrial output growth in the Shanghai metropolitan area slowed to 6 per cent year-on-year last month, compared with an average of 11.5 per cent year-on-year growth for the first three quarters.

Analysts widely expect China's leaders to speed up infrastructure projects around the country to stimulate the economy in a downturn, as well as push ahead with their long-term plans to boost domestic consumption.