China's momentous year can be divided in two. In the first half, as developed markets floundered, it was the saviour of the world: conciliatory and deferential, reigniting linked economies through the awesome power of government stimulus. In the second, as bigger nations recovered some swagger, it grew pricklier and more inward-looking.
Having set in motion a credit and investment-fuelled recovery to manufacture strong growth in the 60th anniversary year of the People's Republic, China is beginning to face the consequences.
No figure embodied that significant shift more than Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank, and the first of Lex's Chinese personalities of 2009. In March, he called time on the dollar as the main global reserve currency, but in the nicest possible way. Not only was it an indirect rebuke for the US's rising fiscal and current account deficits, but Mr Zhou's solution – a new super-sovereign currency, under the auspices of the International Monetary Fund – steered clear of overt nationalism.