Hi, I'm Dan Premack and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Facebook.

Today is Tuesday, October 20th.

Coronavirus positivity rates are up, Google stock is down,

and we're focused on China's economic recovery.

Yesterday, the Chinese government reported third quarter GDP growth of 4.9% year over year.

In other words, GDP increased in China for a three-month period from before the pandemic

to a three-month period after the pandemic. Yeah, growth is slower than it had been in 2019, but it's still

growth. Why it matters is that China's economic experience is vastly different from what we're

seeing in the U.S., which could lessen our leverage when negotiating on matters like trade.

Now, there are expectations here of very large GDP growth between the second and third

quarters of 2020.

But again, that's the second and third quarters of 2020, not between last year and this

year.

Two major reasons for the discrepancy.

First, China did a much better job getting the coronavirus under control, albeit partially

through methods that wouldn't so easily

fly in a Western democracy, or at least in our Western democracy.

Two, China invested a lot more during the depths of the pandemic in terms of both government

spending and business loans.

The bottom line is that China's economy still does have a lot of scars from COVID-19, but it's healing fast

and doing so in a way that may make it less dependent on the U.S. and the rest of the world.

If 15 seconds will go deeper on the past, present, and future of China's economy with

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