A heads up for our take on the stimulus package. Just to underline how badly the package is needed, the Guangdong province government announced yesterday that the volume of deals at the annual Canton trade fair, China’s biggest and oldest, dropped by 17.9 per cent, the first time the number has declined since the SARs outbreak in 2003. Like everyone else, we are still trying to figure out whether China’s economy will have a hard or soft landing in the coming months. As always with China, there is no easy answer and plenty of smart, informed people with diametrically opposed views.