China Inc is battling a crisis of confidence and there's no quick fix to it

China's private companies and manufacturers have been unresponsive to the latest drip feed of stimulus

China’s industrial sector is facing a crisis of confidence. So far, Beijing’s solutions haven’t been enough to shore it up.

In response to streams of gloomy data — from retail sales and industrial profits to layoffs — officials have vowed billions of yuan in support for railway infrastructure investment, employment incentives, tax cuts and loan disbursements. China watchers are now forecasting a deeper slowdown and have put the big-spending Chinese consumer on life support.

While that’s helped boost construction machinery makers and railway companies, as we wrote recently, a vast swath of the manufacturing sector is still struggling. New orders are down,