The article points to less easily faked data to indicate the slowdown, not the official statistics that are widely known to have a tenuous relationship with reality.
The value of the yuan to what, the US dollar? It's pegged and maintained there using foreign currency reserves. It's occasionally adjusted so I guess it could be considered a "dirty float" if you want to stretch that definition a bit.
You can fake stats sure, but can you fake the fact that everything sold in an Apple store and half the stuff on Amazon or Walmart is made in China now?
You say that as if manufacturing product for someone else was a highly profitable business. There is a reason more and more has gone overseas. The margins are vanishingly small and continuing to drop.
Yes but will China ever make a decent pair of pliers or crescent wrench for export? So far the answer is "No!". We've been inundated with one-time-use tool fluff/cruft for a decade now with no sign of it letting up. Good thing we're raising tariffs.
In contrast, Taiwan-made tools are excellent, on a par with USA-made and European tools. Too bad Taiwan is caught up in the tariffs. But I always look for the "made in Taiwan" label anyway. If its present then I know it will work well. And older tools from Taiwan on eBay are good too.
they sure screwed up during the iraq war. that's a big notable exception to their general excellence at writing about and discovering important and accurate things.