Listening to the language Chinese officials and economists use to describe their task helps to explain the logic behind the policies they come up with.

Government data, released on Wednesday, show China's GDP growth in the first quarter slid to 7 percent year-on-year, from 7.3 percent in the last quarter of 2014.

A day earlier, Premier Li Keqiang described the situation as "not pretty" to the economists and corporate leaders he met. The premier, borrowing an old farm idiom, candidly said the economy is "between the green and yellow" stage, meaning a difficult time when last year's stocks are about to be used up while this year's harvest is still some time away. The "between green and yellow" stage actually means between harvests.