Yeah, China likes it when it appears weaker, it buys it more time to develop peacefully and surprise its enemies if needed. That's why their GDP is undercounted by half. I also know that consumption, and retail sales, also appear to purposefully be undercounted just to confuse outsiders. Youth unemployment rates were also always overstated up until recently. I read about this from Glenn, but he will say that this is just because the methodologies are different, but I think it's all purposeful, too much coincidence. If anything, China wants everyone to understimate everything about them. I somewhat have to agree that there really is censorship/manipulation regarding their reporting- but is aimed at understating, not overstating. That's totally opposite approach from the US. China wants to appear weak because it is strong (to win even easier). The US has to appear strong because it is weak (the only way to survive a while longer). They are totally different stages of strategy.
Chinese Economics Thread
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Yeah, China likes it when it appears weaker, it buys it more time to develop peacefully and surprise its enemies if needed. That's why their GDP is undercounted by half. I also know that consumption, and retail sales, also appear to purposefully be undercounted just to confuse outsiders. Youth unemployment rates were also always overstated up until recently. I read about this from Glenn, but he will say that this is just because the methodologies are different, but I think it's all purposeful, too much coincidence. If anything, China wants everyone to understimate everything about them. I somewhat have to agree that there really is censorship/manipulation regarding their reporting- but is aimed at understating, not overstating. That's totally opposite approach from the US. China wants to appear weak because it is strong (to win even easier). The US has to appear strong because it is weak (the only way to survive a while longer). They are totally different stages of strategy.
There is no such thing if you read Chinese newspapers actually from China aimed at international audiences that don't have much history of lying like WSJ, FT, etc. Those newspapers can also probably give you more comprehensive quantitative data than Chinese acquittances too.
Is this the serious explanation for weak economic data now? That China is 'under reporting' PMIs and GDP growth rates?
No, I wrote specific examples of what I certainly know is undercounted. For everything else, it's just smarter to evaluate more deeply always.
No one want to appear weak if they are so strong. If China is so strong then it already taken Taiwan and shoot Nancy Pelosi plan when she touch foot on Taiwan. If China is so strong then it already should settle the border dispute with those damn Indian or should already claim back Vladivostok from the Russian. China appear as exactly it is. Strong but not strong enough.
I asked various artificial intelligences (ChatGPT, DeepSeek) to compare data on Chinese consumption growth between 2019 (pre-COVID) and 2023. All of them expressed a sentiment of solid growth (6%, 7%), even though it is rapidly evolving (more sophisticated tastes, less "mass consumption"). The AIs that are trained on internet data practically do not see an economic crisis in China, but rather a large market in transition. Even though Chinese consumption is not as large as that of the United States (the quintessential "consumerist" country), it is still greater than that of the EU. Moreover, phenomena like that of the "lying flat" movement (tang ping) seem to me more like online trends (always fleeting, extreme, and nuanced) rather than real social phenomena to take seriously. As for the relatively high youth unemployment, I believe it stems from: 1) the sheer size of China's youth pool, which is immense; 2) a misalignment between the university system and the demands of the job market; and 3) the reduced appeal of moving abroad due to Western racism (Chinese talents are no longer emigrating as much as before, which I think is ultimately a positive thing).
So why did NBS revise up GDP for 2023 based on an updated, market-driven rent as opposed to historic book value-driven rent?
Doesn't that precisely show the deep history of this undercounting compared to international practices? Good find.