via [ Newsweek ] by Fareed Zakaria

The great surprise of 2009 has been the resilience of the big emerging markets—India, China, Indonesia—whose economies have stayed vibrant. But one country has not just survived but thrived: China. The Chinese economy will grow at 8.5 percent this year, exports have rebounded to where they were in early 2008, foreign-exchange reserves have hit an all-time high of $2.3 trillion, and Beijing’s stimulus package has launched the next great phase of infrastructure building in the country. Much of this has been driven by remarkably effective government policies. Charles Kaye, CEO of the global private-equity firm Warburg Pincus, lived in Hong Kong for years. After his last trip to China a few months ago he said to me, “All other governments have responded to this crisis defensively, protecting their weak spots. China has used it to move aggressively forward.” It is fair to say that the winner of the global economic crisis is Beijing.

Almost every country in the Western world entered the crisis ill prepared. Governments were spending too much money and running high deficits, so when they had to spend massively to stabilize the economy, deficits zoomed into the stratosphere. Three years ago, European countries were required to have a budget deficit of less than 3 percent of GDP to qualify for EU membership. Next year, many will have deficits of about 8 percent of GDP. The U.S. deficit will be higher, in percentage terms, than at any point since World War II.

China entered the crisis in an entirely different position. It was running a budget surplus and had been raising interest rates to tamp down excessive growth.

China: The Recession’s Real Winner | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com.

Thomas Economics