On the one hand, stockpiles of thermal coal at import terminals are said to be full thanks to falling electricity production.

On the other, forecasts of demand remain optimistic.

Recently, a major bank and the director of one of the world’s largest coal producers separately said any slowdown today would soon be forgotten.

Who is right?

That is what has kept The Hog busy over the past week during which he has seen several gloomy reports about Chinese coal demand and dealt first-hand with people at the “coal face” who ought to have a better grip on events.

In the gloomy corner are people such as the analysts at Bernstein Research who noted a few days ago that China not only had full stockpiles but was keen to become self-reliant in coal supply by developing mines in the far west of the country.

Infrastructure bottlenecks have been the historic hurdle to getting coal from the under-populated west to the east coast where most industry and people are located.

The Bernstein boys reckon work has started to fix that problem, meaning if China can use more of its own coal there will be reduced demand for imports.

“The stakes could not be higher,” Bernstein said.

“From the outside looking in, the US has joined Australia, Colombia, Indonesia, Mozambique, Mongolia and South Africa on the list of coal exporters who believe Chinese coal consumption and import growth are a one-way trade.

“If that assumption is wrong, where does all the coal go?”

Bernstein’s sobering question, which can only be answered by saying it doesn’t go anywhere because the price will fall and production will decline to match demand, is one that follows more immediate developments, such as the problem of port stockpiles.

This is where the inscrutable face becomes even harder to read because there are disturbing reports about falsified official statistics relating to electricity production that are being used to help prop up a struggling Chinese economy.

The New York Times newspaper followed up the fudged data story last week without arriving at a firm conclusion.

It did, however, seize on the issue of stockpiles that have reached record levels.

The port of Qinhuangdao, for example, was said to have put up the “full” sign after its stockpiles hit 9.5 million tonnes.

It overtakes the previous record of 9.3 million tonnes in late 2008, when the world was at the bottom of the global financial crisis.

So much for the bad news. Now for the good – and yes, there is some – from two different sources, a bank and a big coal miner.

The bank with an optimistic outlook is Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which reckons that “the trough is now”.

Decoded, what the western bank with the best connections to the eastern world means is that all the bad news is out and recovery (in Asia, if not Europe) has started.

“It’ll turn out OK,” is the snappy headline on HSBC’s third-quarter Asian Economics report that notes Europe will be a long-term worry but “in China, things should start to improve quite soon”

The focus of government policy in China was shifting, HSBC said, from concern over inflation to stimulating growth – which would boost electricity production and coal demand.

Xstrata, one of the world’s biggest coal producers, agrees.

One of its senior directors who found time to speak with The Hog last week described events in China as being far from even hitting a speed bump.

“They’ve just taken their foot off the accelerator,” he said.

“The outlook for coal is bullish.”

As someone famous once remarked: “He would say that, wouldn’t he?” – a veiled observation that an Xstrata director has to be confident about demand for his company’s products.

But what the man from Xstrata did not know at the time was that HSBC had arrived at the same conclusion – that the bad news about Chinese growth is out and an improvement is underway.

Who’s right – the people with a positive view or those with a negative view?

On balance and given the ability of the Chinese government to exert more influence than any western government on the direction of its economy, there are reasons to subscribe to the HSBC view of the world – “the trough is now”, with better times to follow.