This assessment is incontrovertible if the metric used is solely that of economic growth and of how quickly China returned to its high growth path; but the performance through the crisis looks weaker when a broader metric is used. First of all, once unleashed,the stimulus appeared to spin quickly out of control. Investment in fixed assets jumped to 66% of GDP in 2009, and infrastructure investment leaped to more than 18% of GDP, raising immediate concerns about the economy’s absorptive capacity and the care with which projects were selected and implemented.