Can China's expansion pull the rest of us out of recession?

China's economic recovery is underway, but can the world's third largest economy drive both an Asia hemisphere rebound and help jump-start the U.S. economy?

According to Xinhua, China's state news service, China's economy grew 7.9 percent in the second quarter, good for a 7.1 percent GDP gain in the first half of 2009. This jump represents robust growth for an emerging market economy, but it also follows a quarter in which China's economy grew at its lowest rate in about a decade. China's truly giddy-growth this decade, prior to the global financial crisis, propelled an Asian boom: close trade partners fed commodities and raw materials to China, which returned manufactured goods.