When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sought to reassure business leaders that the world's second-largest economy can avoid a hard landing, he acknowledged mounting fears of exactly that, and analysts say the adjustment to slower growth will be painful.
Just six months ago Li set a 2015 economic growth target of "around seven percent", confidently telling lawmakers that the economy was adjusting to a "new normal".
But he scrambled to reassure a World Economic Forum meeting on Thursday that China was not heading for a disorderly slump which would shake the global economy.
Still, gloomy perceptions of China are growing and the signs are troubling: a surprise currency devaluation, persistently weak manufacturing, and rising debt defaults, with a share price collapse to boot.
Government meddling in the stock and currency markets, including police investigations, as well as falling back on pump-priming to support the flagging economy, have raised questions about the leadership's management and commitment to reforms, analysts say.
Recent economic figures for August were a mixed bag but showed glimmers of hope. Growth in industrial production and retail sales accelerated, though that for fixed-asset investment during the first eight months slowed further.
Exports performed better than expected but imports plunged nearly 14 percent year-on-year.
Consumer price inflation ticked up to a manageable 2.0 percent, but the producer price index -- a measure of costs for goods at the factory gate -- fell 5.9 percent, the worst since September 2009.
The country's biggest banks, including industry giant the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, have reported rises in bad loans for the first half as companies struggle.
China has already cut interest rates five times since November and the government in the past week offered some details of a more aggressive fiscal policy, including speeding up major construction projects.
China could deploy fiscal stimulus of at least 1.2 trillion CNY (188 billion USD) over the next three years, according to an estimate by state-owned investment bank China International Capital Corp.
That would be far less than the 4.0 trillion CNY stimulus package China rolled out to mitigate the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis.
But that sort of pump-priming was not without its costs -- China is still paying the price from the crippling debt and asset bubbles that resulted.
When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sought to reassure business leaders that the world's second-largest economy can avoid a hard landing, he acknowledged mounting fears of exactly that, and analysts say the adjustment to slower growth will be painful.
