The fund focused on a few areas of acute risk.

One is the financial system. China has had a huge boom in lending through “less regulated” parts of its financial system, the fund said. It raised concerns about the adequacy of China’s regulatory controls, the quality of underwriting and the pricing of risk.

The formal banking sector might not be as strong as it looks, either, the I.M.F. warned. “Based on reported data, bank balance sheets appear healthy and loan books show only a modest deterioration in asset quality,” the report said. “However, banks remain vulnerable to a sharper worsening of corporate sector financial performance.”

Another issue is a proliferation of debt-financed spending by local governments without adequate tax bases, often through “local government financing vehicles” that have long been regarded as a weak spot in China’s markets. “Further rapid growth of debts would raise the risk of a disorderly adjustment in local government spending,” the I.M.F. warned.

Finally, it cautioned of the possibility of plummeting prices in real estate markets. It said real estate remained “prone to bubbles” in no small part because many Chinese savers do not earn interest on their deposits and, as a result, push money into housing markets.

Making adjustments to the financial markets and correcting the pace of infrastructure spending might mean slower growth in the near term, the I.M.F. has said. But it might mean more sustainable growth in the long term, with substantial benefits not just for China but also for global growth.

That message was delivered as the Chinese economy is already slowing considerably; growth has fallen to an annual pace of about 7.5 percent, down from a peak of more than 14 percent in 2007, before the global financial crisis.

More broadly, the emerging market economies that helped pull the world out of the global recession have cooled, dragging the global growth rate down with them. Growth remains sluggish in the United States, and much of Europe is mired in a recession.