Under President Xi, even economics has become a delicate topic. Many people in China are not willing to speak publicly because even economists aren’t allowed to make downward forecasts.

Yet in private conversations, investors, entrepreneurs and economists admit that with the high debt level and a trade war with the United States, the room for government maneuvering is shrinking. The degrees of pessimism vary, but many of them are bracing for a tough ride ahead.

They told me to change all my savings into gold, a risk-management measure for extreme times. They worry that the trade war will hurt the tech and the venture capital industries because they operate globally. They even envision the possibility of the world’s going back to the Iron Curtain era, the pre-1989 world order of distinct political, economic and ideological barriers between the Soviet bloc and the West.

Wu Xiaoling, a former deputy central bank governor and now dean of Tsinghua University PBC School of Finance, told the graduates last week to brace for global economic and political uncertainty. “We don’t have much time left to revel in the carnival of bubbles,” she said in a speech. “Every country, every individual should be prepared to face the reality after the tide retreats.” The speech was circulated widely on the Chinese social media, possibly because she said what’s on many people’s minds.

China’s venture capital industry may be a sign of what’s to come. It is sensitive to both money flows and capital sentiment, and therefore could offer a good gauge of the health of key parts of the Chinese economy. The Chinese government on Monday reported that the economy grew 6.7 percent in the second quarter from a year ago.

So far, funding this year is weak. In the first three months, private equity and venture capital funds raised less than two-thirds of what they had raised over the same period a year ago, according to Zero2IPO Research in Beijing. Their investing activity dropped by nearly half. Funding has slowed in the past when the economy hit bumps, but both the data and the people involved say the current slowdown is unprecedented.