I agree with you Doc..
China is a different story...it never suffered from this last global recession as it was never in recession..therefore there was no economic recovery in China, for them it was and is business as normal and growing/profiting from it.
From reading these economist's articles you get the feeling they are fiddling with their worry beads and forecasting with false logic influenced from the present tough times.
Figures are unofficial at the moment but Multinational Companies marketing departments seem to agree that Western world source growth figures for China are unreliable and conflicting...Independent research from PepsiCo is showing growth of 9+% (a couple of months ago) most of it internal.
International companies are being pulled like a magnet to China. These Multinationals bring money into the country's infrastructure which promotes growth and help sustain it... another win win situation.
And don't forget India target 8% growth rate neither. India is also becoming a International Company magnet.
Indra Nooyi (PepsiCo CEO) video PepsiCo extra $500M investment into India (Dec 2008) gives us some idea how these Multinational companies boost all areas of a country's well being from Health to building roads (infrastructure) ..research .. school education ..target to eliminate poverty in India by 2015..etc.
All this money spent in China /India is money not spent on USA/ Europe infrastructure.
The US aren't used to other Countries competing for Multinational Company funds of this magnitude...it is a loss situation for USA.
We as Investors are going to have to live with conflicting media reporting much of it US influenced, as well as increased covert economic and political fiddling... as US and Europe aren't just going to roll over without a fight and let the world power base slowly gravitate to Asia.