In today’s ailing global economy, even fast-growing China is hurting.

But there are signs China is poised to heal better than the U.S., gaining a competitive advantage along the way.

A report in Tuesday’s New York Times  describes an economic slowdown under way in China, including a drop in new factory orders and tepid export growth.

That might be good news to advocates who worry about the impact of China’s exports on U.S. jobs. From 2001 to 2007, the U.S. trade deficit with China led to the loss or displacement of 2.3 million jobs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

But any celebrations of a weakening China could be short-lived.

The Times also says that China’s focus on upgrading its transportation infrastructure is paying off.

“China’s enormous investments in new roads, ports, rail lines and other transportation networks are starting to show productivity gains that could help the country weather a global economic downturn better than most,” the report says.

An official at logistics firm Ryder says roads aren’t the only things being improved in China.

“People have made huge investments in the infrastructure, and it’s not just the physical infrastructure,” the official is quoted as saying. “It’s all the training and people development.”

What’s happening in China is in contrast to the U.S., where calls for new public investments in better infrastructure have gone largely unheeded and firms historically have chopped training budgets during tough times. It’s hard to know exactly what U.S. companies are doing about human capital investments at the moment.

But government-sponsored training services are getting cut, just one sign that our national safety net is insufficiently springy when it comes to helping displaced workers bounce back with better skills and a confident mind-set.

It’s true that pouring too much money into infrastructure could be wasteful, and you can fritter away investments in training.

But retrenching too much during tough times is a recipe for more failure. China’s leaders seem to get that. Will ours?