Chinese youth unemployment in 2023 is roughly comparable to the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) in the 2010s. Those countries still held around a 2-3% GDP growth rate.

Also, the bearish 2-3% growth rate estimation was derived independently of the PRC government - it was reached by both Blackstone and the IMF.

None of this is to say there isn't an economic malaise/recession in the PRC circa 2023, but honestly it's playing out the same way a similar growth slowdown happened in Mexico, Türkiye, South Korea, Thailand, and Brazil in the 2000s when those countries hit similar economic metrics to China in the early 2020s.