I believe it does not and it cannot.
China is operating on a surplus, which, economically speaking, is arguably as bad as operating on a deficit. Money not used is money wasted - the living conditions and environmental conditions of China speak to that. On top of this, operating on a surplus encourages countries to be much more wasteful, the idea being that since the surplus exists the country can get away with more inefficiency than a country with limited resources. Combining these two means a wasteful government and an impoverished people. It is unstable and hard to control, as the source of the surplus may be gone tomorrow, causing a country to restructure markets and tighten spending.
There's an adage that goes something like "If you buy a beer on credit the bar owns you, if you buy hundreds of beer on credit you own the bar." The idea behind that is that if Country A owes Country B too much, Country B is powerless to do much, as an even slight upset could be disastrous. If Country B pressures Country A, all Country A has to do is declare bankruptcy -- now Country B has nothing.
Countries like China need us to buy their services and products. Without the rest of the world, they have no one to unload their junk on, which would cause their economy to crumble. They also need us to keep a stable currency rate that is much more expensive than their currency, or else they'd lose the edge in production.
Now, don't get me wrong. There are threats that could upset these theories. One of which is that emerging/emerged markets are starting to enter the scene. This includes some South American countries, South Africa, and India. With new countries to unload junk on, we aren't as necessary. However it would take a while for these countries (well, save India, who has emerged and has a huge population to boot) to garner the same buying power that consumers in most western countries enjoy. On top of this, China can try to monopolize markets for their own gain. For example, China has announced that they are cutting back exports of rare earth elements - which are used in production for several efficiency products, high efficiency light bulbs, for example. I know Japan has started offering subsidies to companies to find other sources of this and other metals, but otherwise China has had a nearly perfect stranglehold on the industry. We can only hope other countries follow suit.
**Please bare in mind that this is different from (American) Economic Duress - which is on a personal, contractual basis. For example, if party A impoverished party B, and A came to B saying that they can improve conditions if they sign a contract, then B is under economic duress and can void the contract.
