China is the first major economy to show a recovery after a slowdown induced by the COVID-19 pandemic . This work aims to explore what the China ’ s economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic means for the economic growth and energy consumption of the other countries using the global VAR quarterly data . In the long term, spillover effects of China's economic growth have the most obvious impact on upper-middle-income countries ’ economic growth (0.17 %), followed by the economic growth of lower-middle-income countries (0.16 %) and high-income countries (0.15 %). However, the spillover effect of China ’ s economic growth has the most significant impact on energy consumption in high-income countries (0.11% ∼0.45 %), followed by energy consumption in upper-middle-income countries (0.08% ∼0.33 %) and in lower-middle-income countries (-0.02% ∼0.05 %). Our results indicate upper-middle-income countries will benefit the most from China ’ s economic recovery post-COVID-19, followed by lower-middle-income countries and high-income countries . The spillover effect of China ’ s economic recovery post-COVID-19 brings the most obvious impact on the increase in energy consumption in high-income countries, followed by middle-income countries . It also should be noted that the spillover effect of China's economic growth does not necessarily lead to an increase in energy consumption lower-middle-income countries . Generally, the spillover effect of China ’ s economic recovery on other countries ’ economic growth is much more than other countries ’ energy consumption.