In recent years China's economy has obeyed a three-act dramatic structure, recognisable to any playwright.
Growth starts the year brightly, suffers troubling setbacks as spring turns to summer,
then prevails in the end,
after a hurried government stimulus helps it meet the official GDP target, with precious little to spare.
This year's difficult second act has now begun.
After reporting brisk year-on-year growth of 5.3% in the first half of 2025,
China's statisticians have just released disappointing figures.
Retail sales grew by only 3.7% in July compared with a year earlier, before adjusting for inflation.
The volume of home sales fell by 8% over the same period.
Households were so reluctant to take out mortgages, or any other kind of credit,
that the yuan loan books of China's banks shrank in July for the first time in two decades.
The job market also looks wobbly.
Urban unemployment, which does not count people who retreat to the countryside
when they cannot find work in the cities, edged up from 5% to 5.2%.
And things may get worse.
China's highest court has recently ruled that employers cannot waive pension contributions
and other social-insurance payments, even if workers want them to.
The ruling could raise the cost of labour by about 1% of GDP if enforced, according to Société Générale, a bank.
Contributing to the slowdown,
China's policymakers seem to be keeping tighter tabs on its flagship stimulus policy —