Trump undermines confidence in official economic statistics. China shows where this path can perform

Welcome to your return! Louise here. On Friday, President Trump launched a senior economist in the country after her agency was disappointed Junction Report. Trump claimed that the numbers were “forged”, but there is no evidence that Erika Minarker or BLS did nothing inappropriate. However, new recruitment data suggested Trump’s policies It has a negative impact on the American economy.

In the days after that, the Republicans accumulated, and they were accused unanimously from McNTarfer of extinguishing “fake reports”. Trump has not specified a new BLS commissioner, but the epic has already left some Americans wondering whether government statistics could be trusted. If you want a glimpse of the whereabouts of this, you just have to take a look at China.

The Chinese government has always been accused of amplifying the annual GDP growth numbers, especially at the boycott level. In 2007, former Chinese Prime Minister told the US ambassador to China that the gross domestic product numbers for its boycott were “Kant”Man -made“To understand how his area was, Kikang said to me that instead followed the consumption of electricity, charging, and bank loans, a system that the economy later called the” Lee Kicang Index “.

After more than 15 years, experts say things have changed significantly. The Chinese government now launches more economic data and is generally more reliable. Nicholas R. Lardi, an older colleague at the Peterson Institute for International Economy, has written about the Chinese economy since the 1970s: “Data has improved greatly over time.”

One of the reasons for this is that Beijing has stopped classifying local officials primarily on the basis of the economic performance of their regions. The mentality of growth in everything led to societal problems such as widespread pollution. In response, the Chinese Communist Party began to focus more on the fine ideals, such as promoting innovation and reducing the gap in urban areas. This, in turn, reduced the incentive to treat the gross domestic product numbers in the first place.

But many analysts, inside and outside China, believe that Beijing continues to liberalize the total growth numbers, partly due to the fact that officials are still deeply interested in expecting a pink image of the economy. China has officially mentioned that its economy grew 5 percent In 2024, while the United States reported only 2.8 percent.

At a conference in December, an economist at a state -owned Chinese investment company said, “We do not know” the true growth number of China, but speculated that it was much less than what was reported. When Xi Jinping got comments comments, was He is said to be angry And the matter of economic punishment. It looks familiar?

As the Chinese economy cools in recent years, officials have repeatedly sought muzzle experts sharing negative information or daring questioning Beijing. Governmental departments have stopped publishing some industrial reports and employment indicators or Delay Launching them without explanation. Other data has become more difficult to explain it or can no longer It can be accessed from outside the country.

But like a lot of things in China, there can be two things that seem to be correct at the same time. While the experts you spoke to have admitted that China is much less transparent than the United States, they say that the information that it has now put in a relatively accurate and is often amazingly detailed.