China’s economic update for December and Q4 were uniformly ugly. GDP fell to 6.8% and 6.9% for the full year. Industrial production was back below 6%, estimated at just 5.9% and once more denying all those that claimed November’s slight uptick was the start of renewal. Retail sales disappointed at 11.1%, down from 11.2% in November (no difference) while Fixed Asset Investment for the year was just 10%. There is nothing positive about any of these numbers because they signal, inarguably, that the same trend in place for four years now is still the dominant baseline.

That point is remarkably clear, but no matter. Economists, in particular, have already started explaining why what you can plainly see of China’s economy isn’t. This comes about after having said, year after year, that there was no danger of a slowdown in the first place. Now, however, with China’s industry an admitted mess such is a good and positive factor. China is, supposedly, becoming a modern consumer economy, so, by extension, industry suddenly doesn’t matter as much.

The government released other economic metrics today that illustrate the split in China’s economy. Consumers keep rising as old industry declines. Retail sales and industrial production are heading in opposite directions. Retail sales growth reached 11.1% year over year in December, a tick less than last December, but sales continued rising faster than most of last year.

That entire passage is misleading, and obviously so. Retail sales in 2014 averaged just less than 12%, so 11.1% in December 2015 means nothing. For all of 2015, retail sales averaged just 10.6%, clearly slowing from 2014’s pace. But that wasn’t, again, anything surprising. Retail sales have been decelerating for years just as industrial production has. To say that “retail sales and industrial production are heading in opposite directions” just isn’t true in any meaningful sense.