Earlier this year, David Yang was brimming with confidence about the prospects for his perfume factory in eastern China. “It is disheartening,” Mr. Yang said. “The economy is really going downhill right now.”For much of the past four decades, China’s economy seemed like an unstoppable force, the engine behind the country’s rise to a global superpower. A real estate crisis borne from years of overbuilding and excessive borrowing is running alongside a larger debt crisis, while young people are struggling with record joblessness. And amid the drip feed of bad economic news, a new crisis is emerging: a crisis of confidence.

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Persons: David Yang, Covid, Yang, Mr Locations: China