Investors haven't made much money betting against China these last 20 years. Will 2016 be the year the bears finally cash in?

Even with the slowest growth in decades, 2015 could be spun as a plus-column year for President Xi Jinping. His government dodged a whole slew of worst-case scenarios: a currency crash, chaos in debt markets, deflation and instability as pollution worsens. In the 12 months ahead, though, this relative stability will be hard to duplicate.

My own take: China probably won't crash in 2016, but the odds of big financial troubles are higher than they've been in well over a decade.