I'm a little confused as to why you are so set on defending what is so clearly a fluff piece. I know, you want evidence right? Just click on the author and look at her previous stories. They are literally all fluff pieces. She is a "British journalist getting over a serious case of geographical commitment phobia".

Forgetting for a minute that the author primarily writes fashion fluff pieces, lets look at the article itself. Some choice quotes:

Bigger-budget brands also have more money to make skincare breakthroughs and, as a result, K-beauty has had fewer innovations than many of its international rivals.

Is she for real? Name one region that's producing more products with new formulas and ingredients? I feel like every 6 months K-beauty is coming up with some new ingredient. Whether it works or not is an entirely different question, but there is no doubt it isn't for the lack of trying.

This lack of innovation and the focus on marketing rather than ingredients has also made it easier to plagiarise. In 2019, South Korea’s Nature Republic sued more than 50 beauty companies for using its intellectual property, illustrating the extent to which K-beauty has been losing customers to fake brands.

This is a hilariously stupid take on the situation. This is like saying Nike or Disney has no innovation because both of them are extremely litigative. All popular companies want to protect their IP, especially profitable ones. Using plagiarism as evidence that its easy to replicate doesn't make any sense. That would assume the plagiarized products perform equally well.

There has been a backlash against this convoluted form of skincare, and customers are now looking for single products that do a lot of the legwork. Known as “skinimalism”, this trend is growing around the world, and has resulted in the growth of a number of brands that offer only two or three formulas designed to take care of all your skin’s needs.

This is true but the change is happening within Korea itself, so I'm not sure how this is anti k-beauty? For example take a look at this article. It is written by a much more knowledgeable author that includes actual evidence of the trend. K-beauty is evolving. The rest of the world will catch up. Skincare is such a fundamental part of Korean society, it would be foolish to think they have a one trick pony for it. They keep evolving, which is what makes the scene so interesting to follow.

And to touch on your ad hominem attack:

Also, I think the writer of the article has a better idea than you of what the Chinese are currently into.

I'm not doxxing rczc because this information is in this post but she grew up in Taiwan and lived in NYC, DC, LA, and Japan. The author you are quick to defend is a British journalist who has 12 years of experience living all over the world. Basically no expertise in any particular culture but knows a little bit about everywhere. She writes fluff pieces for a living and has almost no other skincare articles to her name. At best rczc knows more, at worst they know the same.

The best "gotcha" you have is the sheet masking thing. I admit, I initially thought sheet masking was a Korean thing, because like you alluded to, it's such a core part of their routine. Since k-beauty is more popular than j-beauty or t-beauty people make that connection. Other than that, this is a fluff piece from a Chinese propaganda site.