How China grew despite the global slump

China's GDP is estimated to have grown 8.7 percent year-on-year in 2009 - once again the highest rate in the world - with the fourth-quarter increase reaching 10.7 percent, compared to 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008.

For much of the world, China's ability to shrug off the global financial crisis and maintain a strong growth trajectory in 2010 and 2011 seems too easy.

But securing China's growth has been anything but easy. The strong, decisive, and deftly timed stimulus policies at the start of the financial crisis did, of course, play a major role in China's quick rebound.