I love how some of the opening lines talks about interviewing a single Chinese person failing to run a business

One entrepreneur interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said that one of his businesses, a distributor for LED screens based in Shenzhen, is suffering from widening losses as overseas orders dry up, leading him to slash prices to compete for domestic clients. Having laid off more than 50 out of 120 staff since 2022, he said he is contemplating whether to shut the business this year.

Official data looks good when you compare it with other large economies.

Export decrese is in line with almost every other east asian country and its very much so a "western economies go into recession and import less" problem. Groth slowing to ~5% is in line with what everyone is expected and China doesnt sweat too much about it. Its pretty solid especially since its higher quality. Deflation is only a problem if it persists for a long time and if it actualy spans in various types of commodities. If you exclude energy and housing everything else shows small inflation in China still and the real estate sector is going through tough but needed restructuring and regulation periods since last year. Deflation introduced from that part of the economy is more or less a by product of them deleveraging the sector and bursting some bubbles