I have traveled to China many times over the past 25 years. You don’t have to be an economist or a statistician to see that its economy has had an enormous rate of growth over that period. It’s obvious.
Does the PRC government manipulate its stats? Well, what government is pure in this regard? But if one visits a city after two years absence and notices that it has about 25% more large office buildings and more under construction, about 25% more traffic with more cars than motorcycles this time (where several years earlier one observed the Chinese combination roto-tiller/produce cart as the main type of motorized passenger conveyance), more roads and highways that expanded outward, one can pretty safely believe that the government’s report that the PRC has a 10% economic growth rate is about right.
No, they do not have a free press, nor does the PRC government recognize freedom of assembly, or freedom of religion, or many of the individual freedoms that we believe are unalienable rights. There’s lots of room for criticism of China on individual and civil rights. The economic success of China’s business environment is not evidence of the moral integrity of its government.
As for unfavorable economic numbers, I’m old enough to remember when the PRC was a Maoist totalitarian state closed off to the world. It didn’t report anything to anybody back then, and the situation was deplorable. That’s one reason why their growth rates over the past quarter-century have been so high. They were starting off an extraordinarily small base. It would be unreasonable for an advanced economy to target a long-term 5% growth rate, much less the 10%+ rates demonstrated by China.
Buildings can be mostly empty, but more cars, traffic, and roads are hard to fake. A lot of this reminds me of all the talk about Japan once upon a time. I can’t help but wonder what we are not seeing.