News Analysis This year, Beijing set the lowest GDP growth target in decades at 5.5 percent. At the close of the first quarter, economic indicators suggest that China will not achieve even this modest growth due to the Russia-Ukraine war and extreme lockdowns of major commercial centers—such as Shanghai and Shenzhen—over a recent surge in COVID-19 outbreaks. China’s urban unemployment was 5.5 percent in February, up from 5.1 percent in December. There was already a clear trend of worsening job prospects; now, with the war and the lockdowns, the jobless numbers are expected to increase. Private sector firms saw a 1.7 percent fall in profits in the first two months of the year, while state-owned enterprises experienced an increase in profits of 16.7 percent. It was the growth of the private sector that initially lifted China out of poverty. Now, the private sector is being hit hardest by government policies. The …