Imprecise Language and Resulting Clouded Thinking

So the Renminbi (slash Yuan) fell by 1% to 6.9 Yuan per US$. That's a big move. a) Treasury has been trying to bully China into faster appreciation of the Yuan for years and b) nothing happens to the Yuan without the People's Bank of China wanting it to happen ot the Yuan. 1-year futures price in a depreciation to 7.20. I'm not sure what happened to warrant this big move. PBoC cut rates aggresively last week but that should've been absorbed instantaneously.

Anyways, regardless, I'm just intrigued by one of JPMorgan's Chief Economist's reaction to this:

"1) The problem China is facing [for exports] is a demand or income issue, not a pricing issue. China's exports are weakening not because that China's products are no longer competitive enough, but the end-demand is disappearing on the worsening global financial crisis and recession; In fact, China's export growth has so far out-performed all its competitors."

I really don't see the point. In econ 101 language: "the demand curve is shifting in, causing a reduction in price and quantity sold." If you want to maintain your quantity sold (or your profit... althought that ultimately depends on the elasticity that you're at) you want to lower prices, i.e. shift the supply curve down/outwards. that's exactly what's happening with the Yuan depreciation.

You can make an argument that demand is so inelastic that a shift in supply will have no impact on the quantity sold. But that's not what this gentleman is saying. He's saying that the problem is a demand issue, not a pricing issue. I dunno, but if I were still teaching econ 101, I'd mark that paragraph and say: "don't confuse shifts in demand with movements along the demand curve" or something along those lines. Really, I do think that he means that it's an issue of the elasticity of demand but it's just imprecise. The kind of imprecise language that's so pervasive in this fast-fast-fast world of finance. I think we could use some more precision.