Very disappointing. What is happening to the Economist?
Nothing - it's the same magazine it always was. Only this time it's covering a topic for which you have a large degree of expertise. I imagine someone with vast knowledge of China and its military capabilities is shaking their head at the article you just lauded.
I worked on a biofuels startup for 2 years, focused on a lesser known crop. During that time I did not read a single article on our sector which did not contain major factual errors.
Perhaps they are just out of their depth wrt technology articles. They should have probably just stuck to politics/economics.
So perhaps saying that there is a decline in quality is over-analyzing it...