On the recession being good to China: I think China's had an extremely good crisis. It's been good for China. It was very obvious to a few people, including some important policy people in Beijing, that the massive export growth of the past decade or so was just not sustainable on a permanent basis. It was heading for a collision anyhow. And in that case, something needed to change, so in some strange way, the crisis has been convenient. It's allowed them to take dramatic monetary and fiscal policy changes.

On forecasting BRIC growth: It hasn't really changed it much at all. From when we first looked at it in 2003, the timetable that we laid out is, broadly speaking, happening in line with what we said. China overtook Germany last year, exactly when we said it. And they're all set to overtake Japan in the next two years, possibly even this year, which is actually quicker. The other three (Brazil, India, and Russia) are emerging, broadly speaking, as we suggested, and so very little has changed.

What we do see today is that the likelihood that the BRICs will take over in aggregate from the G7 10 years earlier, because China and India have grown a bit more than expected.

How do BRICs emerge?: It's complex and that's part of the fascination. Being big isn't the same as being as wealthy. Even though China's overtaken Germany, obviously it's nowhere near as wealthy as Germany and it's not going to be.

Are we at the end of the global recession?: I'm a believer in it, broadly speaking. Although some of the latest evidence is slightly disappointing.

What effect does the rise of China have on other emerging markets?: It's very important. It's demonstrating to the big-population emerging countries that there's an alternative model to the United States, to engage with the world economy. Nigeria and Vietnam are good examples of this. And Indonesia is as well.

It means that you can engage with the world economy, with the same social structure you had before. Before China's success of the last decade, many people feared that the only way you could become successful, the most simple way, was to copy the United States. That's clearly not been the case.

What does the Chinese government need to do differently? I don't know. I give them a 9 out of 10. As with the Asian crisis, when they get hit with something from the outside, the thing that impresses me so much about China is they have something in the cupboard, they take it out and there's the response.

Big risks?: Social disruption. If the big concern there is that at some stage, at some level of wealth, Chinese people might want to control every decision for themselves, including how many children they have. That's a big economic risk.

What if the world economy double-dips?: Because of the Chinese policy response -- it's interesting. They're mitigating the risk of the double-dip, the Chinese and to a lesser extent the Indians. When I hear questions like that, it's a question that assumes the world is Anglo-Saxon driven, which it isn't any more. A double dip with the power of the Lehman failure would upset things. But a slowdown in the U.S. would have a very marginal effect. Because they've come up with the policy response. They've dealt with it. China and Indi represent one third of the world's population. I think it's almost arrogant, certainly presumptuous, to presume that they won't be ready for global economic changes.

On Russia: In this crisis, it's been clear that Russia is dominated by oil too much. It's as simple as that. Russia is the weak one of the four. The government has to diversify away from oil and improve their demographics. But I think there are some modest examples of that developing.

Jim O'Neill is the head of global economic research for Goldman Sachs.