March 19, 2021 last updated 16:14 ET People wearing face masks to protect against the coronavirus ride an escalator at a shopping and office complex in Beijing, July 16, 2020 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein). What the U.S. Can Learn From China’s Economic Recovery The last time the global economy cratered, in the fall of 2008 in the wake of an American banking crisis, it was China that set the pace—both in insulating itself from most of the damage, and in generating enough new demand in its own economy to prevent a far worse downturn than the already terrible recession suffered in much of the rest of the world.