China's unprecedented growth in recent years has come at a terrible price. Ahead of most forecasts, China in 2008 passed the US to become the world's largest source of greenhouse gases.

"It looks to me now as if the markets are now pricing in a rapid recovery, that they're pricing in a V-shaped recession, which I consider extremely unlikely," said Krugman at a forum in Shanghai on May 12.

Applied Materials executives said customer confidence is improving, but cautioned that the company is seeing "a very dynamic environment" in all of its major segments. China's stimulus plans may continue to support cellphone and PC consumption there, said CEO Mike Splinter following release of fiscal Q2 financial results.

Worldwide, the rate of software piracy rose from 38% to 41%, because of the increase of Internet users in high-piracy locations such as China and India, the report found. Software piracy within the US, meanwhile, has remained flat.

China's exports in April were down 22.6% from a year ago, the sixth successive month of decline. But other data released on Tuesday suggest that Chinese government efforts to stimulate the economy are pushing up investment levels in the country.

China's consumer prices fell by 1.5% in the year to April, figures show, the third consecutive month of declines.

Investors in Taiwan equities are reaping the benefits of the island's improving relationship with China, which has powered the benchmark Taiex index to a 39% rise since the beginning of 2009.

Chinese companies are just as eager to defend patents as Western firms, and that China's intellectual-property regime has been tightened in recent years.

Things are looking up for Xugong Group, China's largest heavy machinery maker. Driven by Beijing's five-month-old US$586 billion fiscal stimulus, sales of its bulldozers, wheel loaders, and construction cranes reached an all-time high in March, a spokesman says.

Japan has reported its first annual trade deficit in 28 years, with exports in the year to March down 16% from the previous year.

Signs that a giant fiscal stimulus is starting to work in China. However, China still needs to find a new engine for future growth. Reforms to improve health care and the social safety net will take many years to encourage people to save less.

Chinese major multicrystalline silicon wafer producer LDK Solar Wednesday announced that it had secured a 200-million-yuan loan from China Development Bank and received approval for a one-billion-yuan credit line from Agricultural Development Bank of China.

Annual growth in China's gross domestic product (GDP) slowed in the first quarter of 2009 to 6.1%, the National Bureau of Statistics has announced.

Excluding China, which will announce first-quarter GDP figures later this week, the World Bank now expects developing countries in the region to grow by 1.2% in 2009, down from an estimate of 4.8% in 2008.

Cheap electronics can be counted as one of the few perks of a recession, but because of China's stimulus plan, tobacco farmers in Qinhai and simple economics, LCD screens are actually getting more expensive.

China's major solar wafer producer LDK Solar said that it still enjoys stable standing orders despite the on-going global financial crisis that significantly affected international solar cell markets.

Dell is in talks with China Mobile to offer a smartphone based on the carrier's mobile operating system, a move that would take Dell into a huge but competitive market in China, an analyst said Monday.

China's exports increased last month, but still were down 17% year-on-year, according to figures released by the Chinese government. Imports to China dropped 25% on year to US$72 billion.

China has unveiled plans to establish a US$10 billion investment fund for south-east Asian countries. It also offered credit of US$15 billion to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) which comprises of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

As promoted by Goldman Sachs in 2001, this approach focuses on Brazil, Russia, India and China. While their stock markets were as battered as those in North America and Europe in 2008, most of them may recover faster and offer sustained growth.