It's long been believed that China's economic data is
untrustworthy, but now that the Chinese economy is clearly cooling down, that
theory is being put to the test, and it seems to be confirmed that the
government isn't always forthright about the numbers.
Keith Bradsher at the New York Times has a good overview of
the situation. He notes that in addition to there being an economic
slowdown, this is a year of political transition, which further creates
pressure on folks at all levels of government and in state-owned-enterprises to
juice up the data.
“The government officials don’t want to see the negative,”
so they tell power managers to report usage declines as zero change, said a
chief executive in the power sector.
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