It is somewhat alarmist for my taste. Yet it it rings alarms in ways that should be considered. It closely agrees with the data in the factbook.
It is true that China, as well as any other industrial or advanced economy, is getting hammered by oil prices. More of a concern is the bottleneck in electric generational capacity. Lack of capacity limits growth on demand. New capacity takes time to construct - being involved in the resource sector I'm familiar with the scale of what's needed and even given zero delays due to regulatory concerns they are looking at about two years to bring anything new and of significance online. This would be oil fired. Hydraulic or nuclear would take longer still and the hydraulic route is probably the least feasible.
Other commodities are at high levels currently. Metals are also a Chinese weakness, as it is the very nature of Chinese production - China makes an awful lot of cheap metal goods for sale in Walmart. It is true that China is driving a big mining boom. Unlike oil, there is enough idle mining capacity in North America, and undeveloped (and potential) orebodies, to satisfy the Chinese growth many times over. Once developed, this capacity would have a stabilising effect on prices. Prices themselves are a good thing for China - high prices make a deposit an orebody, guaranteeing supply if the growth is really long term sustainable. But, it takes time: the regulatory process in Canada takes about three years, and about 500 million $, to complete. Two years of construction time, if the orebody is easily accessible, before the production of concentrate. Fortunately for the Chinese, there is plenty of idle smelting capacity at the Horne, CEZ and Kidd. In iron, IOC has been preparing for growth.
China will not have a hard landing. Their principal market is in America, selling cheap stuff in Walmart et al. Even if an economic slowdown precipitates a world recession, this market in America will demand even more. As to what America might do to prevent this from happening, I'll leave that to others - the resource stuff is what drives me.