As someone who's frequently been to China, and I'm talking remote, countryside, ox sowed rice paddy China, everything published from the government is known locally as being totally fake. Bribes are standard and should be expected to do any transaction of volume. Fake GDP numbers are obvious. Heck, fake everything is the norm there. Tax day is very interesting. Uniformed government officials setup camp at the major "5 star" hotels in town and the factory bosses show up in their Lexus SUVs with duffle bags full of Yuan to pay the toll. It's something to be seen for sure. There is no real accounting in middle China. I attribute all the fakeness to 3 main factors; communist party politics, local politics and the diversity of cultures equating to local protectionism and face saving. It's entrenched and will likely never change.

I could probably write a book about fake China.