drops in prices below profitability are, counterintuitively, something that happens in a healthy market. there is always some volatility, so some of the time prices are too high, and some of the time they are too low, and in a rapidly growing market, this can be pretty extreme
i don't see how it makes sense to describe the chinese solar industry in 02018 as 'bloated' if its production that year was 130 gigawatts (minus a few percent for foreign companies) and its production this year is 600 gigawatts. you must think it's super-mega-bloated now; do you think it's going to fall to 100 gigawatts? do you expect record low prices to suppress demand somehow?
it is certainly true that china's market is not open to foreign companies
but i think chinese companies own 95% of the market now mostly because of exports, not because of domestic chinese projects. they took over the market in the 02010s, and at that point the biggest projects were in spain and germany, not china
From the article: "Solar panel prices tumbled around 30 percent last year after China, the world's largest producer, cut subsidies to shrink its bloated solar industry, pushing smaller manufacturers to the brink of collapse."
This is exactly the opposite of price fixing. They subsidized the market (consumption) and created a bloated industry. Removing the subsidies lead to overcapacity and hence a drop in prices below the rate of a healthy market.
This is exactly what is happening again this year. The difference is that we are seeing more than 50% price drop.
If you look at the fraunhofer PDF, you will notice that chinese companies own 95% of the market now. The way they were allowed to scale was by targeted chinese subsidies on PV projects that were not accessible to outside tenders.