China, Global Recession | featured news

Chinese factories battled with their weakest activity in 32 months in November, a preliminary purchasing managers' survey showed, reviving worries that China may be skidding toward an economic hard landing and compounding global recession fears.

Europe is caught in an economic pincer: slow-growth assaults from one side; fickle financial markets from the other. One obvious way out — the China option — seems barred by geopolitics. There is precedent. Historians blame the Great Depression’s severity in part on poor international cooperation. Economist Charles Kindleberger found a vacuum of power: Great Britain, the old economic leader, could no longer lead alone; and the United States — a replacement — wasn’t ready to help. Is there a parallel today between the United States and China? Are we repeating the mistakes of the 1930s? Unsettling questions.

The United States and China piled pressure on Europe on Saturday to get to grips with its debt crisis before it risks causing bank runs and pushing the global economy into ruinous recession.

Stocks tumbled on Thursday, extending losses for a fourth straight session, as the Federal Reserve's weak outlook for the U.S. economy and disappointing data from China heightened fears about a global recession.