Radio Free Asia (RFA) recently reported that, China’s National Bureau of Statistics just announced that statistical fraud has been uncovered in the figures reported by the local governments of seven Chinese provinces and cities, including Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. China’s economy is in a downturn, but in recent years China’s GDP growth rate has been recorded at five percent each year, arousing suspicion that the data have been “inflated”.
As the Chinese central government calls for economic growth to reach a target rate of five percent annually, regional government officials are under tremendous pressure to perform.
Since late November last year, the National Bureau of Statistics of China has set up ten inspection teams to carry out statistical inspections in seven provinces, including Shanxi, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hainan, Chongqing and Ningxia, and three State Council ministries, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the State Administration of Finance. The inspections found “the relevant regions still have problems such as interfering with data reporting, and instructing statistical survey subjects to provide false information.”
Analysts cited by Radio Free Asia (RFA) stated that, for at least a decade, China’s economic growth story has been little more than a “triumph of propaganda.” Whether it is China’s GDP figures, reported economic growth, or data on deflation and population, China’s official statistics have been inflated. For example, in January of 2024, Henan Province revised down its previous year GDP by more than RMB 310 billion (around US$43 billion), which changed its economic growth rate from a decline of 3.6 percent to a growth of 4.1 percent.
Source: RFA, May 22, 2025
https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/shangye/jingji/2025/05/22/china-growth-statistics-fraud/