The analysis in New Scientist isn't based historical trends. It's a causal analysis based on the rapid deployment of new low-carbon generation on China's grid, which is being deployed at rates higher than expected demand. Of course you could be right -- maybe forward demand will be much higher than anticipated, or maybe all of those solar panels will turn out not to be plugged in or something. But you need to make a stronger argument for this than one that just casually glances at a historical time series.
Yes, but such stories have been pushed for many years. If we look at the period before the 2017+ rampup in emissions we can see the same sorts of talk about China's solar ramp:
https://www.google.com/search?q=china+solar+deployment&sca_e...
"China's Solar Surge Presents Future Opportunity"
"China ramps up renewable energy deployment"
"Why China Is Leading The World In Solar Power"
etc. Solar can't replace fossil fuels so it's not unexpected that Chinese emissions would continue to grow.
The difference during those earlier times was that the amount of generation installed was still relatively small. Those articles use the term “future” because the hypothesis was that if exponential trends persisted, eventually generation would start to rival growth in demand. That appears to be actually happening now.
And solar (and wind and nuclear) absolutely can replace fossil fuels. What they can’t do is replace 100% of fossil fuels until storage is cheap and plentiful. With expanded grid capacity and dispatchable fossil generation, a 90%+ low-carbon grid is entirely feasible.