A year after China ended its harsh COVID policies, it's struggling to rebound

An appliance market in Xi'an, China, where Jiang has a construction equipment rental company. He says economic conditions are worse now than during the pandemic, when he started the appliance business, and he isn't selling as much as he used to. (John Ruwitch/NPR)

BEIJING — On the northern edge of Xi'an, a 45-year-old man surnamed Jiang tells a typical story of dream-chasing in China's reform era.

He left his home village at the age of 18 to work in a diamond factory in southern China's Guangdong province, a manufacturing juggernaut. The pay was decent, he says, but after a decade he was restless. So he returned home, where he started a small construction equipment rental company.