Why can't it be both? It seems logical that a downturn would hit luxury models most strongly.
High pricing can often be self-justifying, especially if it's combined with actual higher quality - except once you reach the point that a thing involves too many material sacrifices and then suddenly the "value proposition" stops making sense.
From Apple: "over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad."
Combine that with:
"In fact, categories outside of iPhone (Services, Mac, iPad, Wearables/Home/Accessories) combined to grow almost 19 percent year-over-year."
In other words, even Mac and iPad fell in China while growing overall for the company. So the problem is not isolated to iPhones in China, consumer spending is way down. And yes, aspiring high-end products like Apple products will take a hit in a market where consumers have less money to spend.
High pricing can often be self-justifying, especially if it's combined with actual higher quality - except once you reach the point that a thing involves too many material sacrifices and then suddenly the "value proposition" stops making sense.