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| To the residents and business owners of Chedun, a working-class neighborhood in the southwestern outskirts of Shanghai, the signs of an anemic economy are all around. The factories that once drew workers from around the country have moved away. Those that remain have slashed wages. Around the affordable eateries and motley shops where workers once crowded, employees eagerly latch onto anyone passing by. | 车墩是位于上海西南郊区的一处工薪阶层社区，对这里的居民和企业主来说，经济疲软的迹象无处不在。曾经能吸引全国各地工人的工厂搬走了。还没搬的也削减了工资。在以往人头攒动的平价餐馆和各色店铺附近，店员急切地招徕一切过往行人。 |
| “No one has money now, it’s obvious,” Cherry Qian, 25, said as she sat inside the electronics store she manages, which on Sunday afternoon had seen only one customer. | “现在人都没钱，明显感觉到这个，”25岁的谢莉·钱（音）坐在自己经营的电器店里说道。当时是周日下午，店里只来了一名顾客。 |
| But there’s one place the downturn isn’t as obvious: in the government’s account of it. | 但有一个地方看不到明显的衰退：那就是政府的口中。 |
| A gulf has emerged between the Chinese economy as many Chinese are experiencing it, and Beijing’s narrative of it — and that gulf is only widening. For many ordinary Chinese, one of the worst economic slowdowns the country has faced in decades has translated into widespread pessimism and resignation. But state media and officials continue to declare that any challenges are blips. | 许多中国人感受到的中国经济现状与北京的描述大相径庭，而且这一认知鸿沟还在不断扩大。对于许多中国老百姓来说，数十年来最严重的经济衰退之一已经导致了普遍的悲观和气馁情绪。但官媒和官员仍在宣称一切困难都是暂时的。 |
| Concerns about the economy, propaganda outlets have insisted, have been inflated by Western politicians and media outlets engaged in “cognitive warfare.” One social media account backed by China’s state broadcaster released a video that purported to investigate how foreign news outlets had cherry-picked statistics that predicted higher economic growth, just so they could later say China fell short. “At the end of the day, they are fated to be slapped in the face by reality,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said this month about the purported Western naysayers. | 官方媒体喉舌坚称，是掀起“认知争夺战”的西方政客和媒体夸大了中国经济的问题。中国国家电视台支持的一个社交媒体帐号发布了一段视频，揭露外国媒体如何故意筛选预测中国经济更高增长的数据，以便之后唱衰中国。“（他们）最终难逃被现实打脸的命运，”中国外交部发言人本月在谈到所谓的西方唱反调者时表示。 |
| When the reality has proved too inconvenient, another approach has simply been to conceal it, as when Beijing this month stopped publishing the youth unemployment rate, which had been at a record high. The decision was widely mocked by Chinese social media users, who joked that the government had finally landed on an effective fix. | 当现实被证明不太美好的时候，另一个办法就是掩盖它，就像北京本月停止公布青年失业率一样，该数据曾创历史新高。这一决定遭到了中国社交媒体用户的广泛嘲讽，他们调侃称，政府终于找到了解决失业的妙招。 |
| Differing official and on-the-ground narratives are hardly new in China, with its tightly controlled censorship apparatus. But the contrast is especially stark now, when the public’s gloom is so widespread, from the wealthy elite to factory workers. | 在审查机器的严格管控下，官方叙事与现实状况相互矛盾在中国并不是什么新鲜事。但如今，从富有精英阶层到工厂工人，在公众悲观情绪如此泛滥的情况下，这种对比就变得尤为刺眼。 |
| A housing crisis has left many middle-class Chinese who poured their life savings into apartments reeling. Government crackdowns on various white-collar sectors, from education to technology, have spurred layoffs at major corporations. Foreign companies have pulled back from investments in China, leading to less work for factories, plunging paychecks for workers and falling consumer demand. | 由于掏空了毕生积蓄买房，房地产危机导致许多中国中产阶级陷入困境。从教育到科技，政府对各个白领行业的打压引发了大公司裁员潮。外企纷纷停止在华投资，导致工厂订单减少，工人工资大幅下降，消费者需求不断萎缩。 |
| “I tried many times and just couldn’t find one I wanted,” Zhu Xunyang, 19, said of his search for a summer job at a factory in Chedun while home from university. Either the salary was too low, or the factories didn’t want him, he said. | “试了好多次，就没找到自己理想的，”19岁的朱迅阳（音）说。他从大学返乡，想在车墩的工厂找份暑期工作，但他说要么工资太低，要么工厂不要他。 |
| “So I kind of wanted to just give up,” he said as he played games on his phone in the metalware shop his parents run. “And I did.” | “所以我就又有点想摆（烂）的感觉，”他在父母经营的五金店内边打手游边说。“我就开始摆了。” |
| Many skeptical or outright scornful comments about the economy on social media have escaped the censors, perhaps because they are so common. | 社交媒体上许多对经济持怀疑或直白批判态度的评论逃过了审查，或许是因为此类评论实在太多了。 |
| “That sense of insecurity is almost universally shared within China now, across all walks of life,” said Chen Zhiwu, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong. “And that is why the government has been using all the official media and all other tools to convey a positive, optimistic message.” | “这种不安在如今的中国几乎是普遍存在的，遍及各行各业，”香港大学金融学教授陈志武表示。“这也是为什么政府一直在利用一切官媒和其他工具来传递积极乐观的信息。” |
| The malaise is especially striking compared to the optimism many Chinese felt earlier this year, after Beijing finally abandoned coronavirus restrictions that for three years had left many people unable to leave home and unwilling to spend. | 与今年年初许多中国民众感受到的乐观相比，这种不安尤其引人瞩目，当时北京终于放弃了三年来让许多人无法走出家门、不愿消费的新冠防疫措施。 |
| Ms. Qian, the electronics store manager, had hoped to buy a new car before her wedding later this year. But after seeing how business had flagged — she saw around 20 customers a day last year, she said — she abandoned that idea. | 经营电器店的谢莉·钱原本想在年底结婚前购置一辆新车。但在看到生意如何萎靡不振——她说去年每天大约能接待20名顾客——之后，她放弃了这个念头。 |
| “It’s to prevent risk,” she said. “Before, you could buy a house as an investment. Now, nobody dares buy a house, or to casually buy anything big.” | “防风险，”她说。“因为现在这个钱你也不知道该怎么去，以前你还可以买买房子，投投资，现在谁也不敢去买房，不敢轻易买大件。” |
| A few blocks away, Zhang Jiaojuan and her husband were wondering whether people would venture to buy anything small, either, as they mixed chives and meat for orders that had yet to materialize at their dumpling store. | 几个街区之外，张姣娟（音）和她的丈夫正在为饺子店还没送出的订单搅拌韭菜肉馅，他们怀疑，人们可能连小件都不愿买了。 |
| They had not planned to be entrepreneurs: Last year, they worked at an auto parts factory, earning between $800 and $1,000 a month, about the average per capita income in Shanghai. But this spring, wages fell to about $550, so low that the couple decided they might as well try to start their own business. They invested their life savings of about $27,000, thinking of the lively crowds that had filled the cramped storefronts hawking noodles, spicy duck necks and roast meat in the prepandemic years. | 他们原本没打算创业，去年还在一家汽车配件厂上班，每月收入在800到1000美元之间，属于上海的平均水准。但今年春天，工资降到了550美元左右，低到让这对夫妇决定尝试自己开店。他们将大约2.7万美元的毕生积蓄投入其中，希望能看到疫情前那些兜售面条、辣鸭脖和烤肉的逼仄店面里热闹非凡的场面。 |
| “And then we found out business is bad here, too,” said Ms. Zhang’s husband, who gave only his surname, Xue. | “然后我们发现这里的生意也不好，”张姣娟的丈夫说，他只透露自己姓薛。 |
| “People don’t spend money like they did before the pandemic, where they’d buy whatever they want,” Ms. Zhang said, as their teenage son slouched at one of the empty tables, playing with his phone. | “现在人总的来说，花钱不是像疫情之前想买什么就买什么，”张姣娟说，他们十几岁的儿子正无精打采地坐在一张空桌旁玩手机。 |
| They had cut back on their own spending, too. Mr. Xue said he had essentially stopped buying fruit, limiting himself to staples and vegetables. “We thought if we just got through those three years, and worked hard, there would definitely be hope,” he said. “And then it turned out that when the pandemic ended, things just got worse.” | 他们也削减了自己的开支。薛先生说，他基本上已经不买水果了，只买主食和蔬菜。“我们认为，只要熬过这三年，努力工作，就一定会有希望，”他说。“结果疫情一结束，反而更糟了。” |
| Officials have acknowledged that the economy is facing new challenges, describing the recovery as “wavelike” while maintaining that the overall outlook is positive. But the remedies they have offered are unlikely to be effective, economists said. | 官员们承认，经济正面临新的挑战，将复苏描述为“波浪式”，同时保持总体前景乐观。但经济学家表示，他们提供的补救措施不太可能奏效。 |
| Despite urging consumers to spend more, the government has rejected the idea of cash handouts to households, calling it too costly. It has brandished tax incentives for purchases of new homes, even as it has continued to erode the already weak social safety net that makes many Chinese leery of big purchases. | 尽管政府敦促消费者增加支出，但拒绝向家庭发放现金的想法，称其成本太高。政府为购买新房提供税收优惠，同时继续削弱本已薄弱的社会保障体系，使许多中国人对大额消费持怀疑态度。 |
| On Monday, the Ministry of Finance halved the tax on stock transactions, in an attempt to boost investor confidence. But that would not remedy how unwilling people are to buy stocks in the first place, given a lack of faith that they would grow in value, said Professor Chen: “When the future is so uncertain, then it does not matter what kind of transaction costs you charge.” | 周一，财政部将股票交易税减半，试图提振投资者信心。但这并不能改变人们从一开始就不愿意购买股票的想法，因为他们对股票增值缺乏信心，陈志武说：“当未来这么不确定，收取什么样的交易成本都无所谓。” |
| “Detachment” between the top leadership and the reality of many Chinese, he added, “is clearly there.” | 他还说，高层领导和许多中国人的现实之间的“脱节”是“显而易见”的。 |
| The government’s blame of external forces for the slowdown does have supporters. Wang Ainian, a barber in Chedun, pointed to news reports about the trade war with the United States and Japanese restrictions on the export of computing chips, when asked why business had slowed at local factories. | 政府将经济放缓归咎于外部因素的说法确实有支持者。当被问及当地工厂的业务为何放缓时，车墩镇的理发师王爱年（音）提到了有关中美贸易战和日本限制计算机芯片出口的新闻报道。 |
| The economic pain has also been spread unevenly across the country. The wealthy, more insulated from uncertainties, continue to spend on luxury goods. Many malls and train stations are bustling again, though most shoppers and travelers are spending less and choosing cheaper destinations. Among some lower-income Chinese, familiarity with hardship has also blunted the pessimism of the recent downturn. | 经济痛苦在全国的分布也不均匀。富裕阶层不受不确定因素的影响，继续购买奢侈品。许多购物中心和火车站重新热闹起来，尽管大多数购物者和旅行者减少了支出，并选择了更便宜的目的地。在一些收入较低的中国人中，对困难的熟悉也削弱了对近期经济低迷的悲观情绪。 |
| But even for Mr. Wang, no matter who is responsible for the economic pain, he had little hope that it would reverse itself soon. He was seeing only about two-thirds of the customers that he had the year before, and half of prepandemic levels. And that was in a world-class city like Shanghai, not his hometown in inland Anhui Province. | 但即使是对王爱年来说，无论谁应该为经济痛苦负责，他也并不指望这种情况会很快逆转。他接待的客户只有去年的三分之二左右，是大流行前的一半。而且是在上海这样的世界级城市，不是他在内陆省份安徽的家乡。 |
| “Shanghai is a place people dream of, and the population was always growing,” he said of Chedun. “But now it’s not.” | “上海是人向往的地方，它是人口量是在膨胀，”他在谈到车墩时说。“现在没有膨胀，在减退。” |
| For others, the official explanations hardly register. A few blocks away, a 33-year-old clothing shop owner who gave her surname, Tang, said she did not pay attention to news about the economy. But she did spend a lot of time on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform similar to Instagram, where she tried to collect business tips from other clothing store owners. Most of the posts from them, though, were lamenting how bad their own business was. | 对其他人来说，官方的解释很难让人信服。几个街区之外，一位33岁的唐姓服装店老板说，她不关注经济新闻。但她确实花了很多时间浏览小红书，试图从其他服装店老板那里收集商业技巧。然而，他们发的大多数帖子都在哀叹自己的生意有多糟糕。 |
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