Will Communism Save China's Economy fom US crisis 2009 ?

Will Communism Save China's Economy?

So is China going to get pulverized by the economic downturn or will it escape bruised but unbowed? Two perspectives reveal a lot about what we know and don't know about China. One predicts that the Communist Party's capacity to meddle in China's economy is actually that nation's secret weapon.The other cautions that during downturns big exporters (like the United States during the Great Depression and China today) usually get hit harder than the rest.

In its latest edition, Newsweek has a piece on China headlined "Crisis Winners: Why China Works," which argues that China is uniquely situated to ride out the global economic storm partially for the very reasons that free-market economists usually ridicule: the capacity of the Chinese state to meddle in the economy. The piece quotes a series of China experts -- such as Andy Rothman of CLSA and Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley Asia -- predicting that China's going to at least muddle through. "What we're seeing is that the Chinese command-and-control system can actually work more effectively than other market based systems in times of economic stress," the piece quotes Roach as saying.

The piece argues that China's leadership -- with its remarkable capacity to tolerate radical experimentations, learn from mistakes, focus on a target and pursue it unrelentingly -- will see China through this crisis