China increases odds of being first big economy out of slowdown

China says its investment in the economy, largely from a $500 billion stimulus package, would pull its economy out of several months of lethargic growth in exports and manufacturing. It now looks like that may be true.

China has argued that its system of central government control of many of the aspects of banking and industrial output make its prospects better than those of the "corrupt" economies of the U.S. and Europe which have nearly fallen apart due to lax regulations on the financial activities of banks and brokerages. In what is probably a correct evaluation of Western economic trouble, China has insisted that the credit and mortgage-backed securities problems could not have happened in the world's most populous nation.