"The central government believes it controls the economy, but Li Keqiang proved that all they control is the reporting of the economy. The Chinese Communist Party can order falsified results, but they are powerless to change the underlying realities or force the numbers to add to a desired sum." It's a good point! However, gov stats in other countries are also rather suspect and likely to be gamed. For example; How many countries changed methodology for counting Covid cases and fatalities? How often is jobs data revised in the US? Why are official unemployment numbers in the UK currently classified as "experimental" due to data research problems? Please Note: I am absolutely NOT suggesting collusion/conspiracy! That's ridiculous. Just saying official data is no longer reliable. We should instead crowd source our own common sense definitions of economic growth, unemployment, etc...