my conspiracy brain tells me it's not actually aimed at average western readers. During this round of real estate downturn (which started in 2020) there's been some concerted effort both inside and outside china in the business/finance journalism to force the gov to pump out massive amounts of cash and bail out those loser-financiers (perhaps à la USA in oct 2008?). Instead, not only is the gov reluctant to do so, but they've also done the appallingly unthinkable of jailing many CEOs and board members (the gov has also, to my limited understanding of macroeconomics, refused to let those real estate firms declare bankruptcy before they actually finish those construction projects for which people have already paid the deposits and taken on loans). Anyway, there's probably a rather materially cynical reason for all this clamor of "Xi's intentionally letting the economy go bust"