Global investors are increasingly worried about a sharp slowdown in China, which has eclipsed the US Federal Reserve’s cutbacks in its bond-buying as the biggest perceived threat to the global economy, according to a survey of fund managers by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

Nearly half of those surveyed, or 46%, pointed to a hard landing for China's economy, and an accompanying collapse in commodity prices, as the biggest risk. That's up from up from 37% last month and 26% in December.