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Comment by barrow-rider | Hacker News Reader

Has it really slowed, or just been putting out shady statistics for a while that show growth that isn't there?

The article points to less easily faked data to indicate the slowdown, not the official statistics that are widely known to have a tenuous relationship with reality.

>are widely known to have a tenuous relationship with reality

So, like the New York Times?

citation needed

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller

and inversely:

https://www.thenation.com/article/new-york-times-wants-gary-...

they sure screwed up during the iraq war. that's a big notable exception to their general excellence at writing about and discovering important and accurate things.

Look -- I'm as skeptical of the Chinese miracle as anyone.

But serious question: if the data was really as fake as everyone says, wouldn't the official and unofficial exchange rate of the Yuan be a lot larger?

If the Chinese are basically pretending the economy has grown 500% and it's only grown 100%, wouldn't the value of the Yuan prove it?

Yuan is a controlled currency

The value of the yuan to what, the US dollar? It's pegged and maintained there using foreign currency reserves. It's occasionally adjusted so I guess it could be considered a "dirty float" if you want to stretch that definition a bit.

Also: https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/new-study-shin...

You can fake stats sure, but can you fake the fact that everything sold in an Apple store and half the stuff on Amazon or Walmart is made in China now?

Plus we have a pretty good gauge of trillions of $ of stuff that goes into China and trillions of $ of stuff that comes out that is not the same.

Like really people, China is probably faking some stats, but they're clearly rich and making a ton of money and stuff.

You say that as if manufacturing product for someone else was a highly profitable business. There is a reason more and more has gone overseas. The margins are vanishingly small and continuing to drop.

Yes but will China ever make a decent pair of pliers or crescent wrench for export? So far the answer is "No!". We've been inundated with one-time-use tool fluff/cruft for a decade now with no sign of it letting up. Good thing we're raising tariffs.

In contrast, Taiwan-made tools are excellent, on a par with USA-made and European tools. Too bad Taiwan is caught up in the tariffs. But I always look for the "made in Taiwan" label anyway. If its present then I know it will work well. And older tools from Taiwan on eBay are good too.

The yuan is not fully convertible. It is subject to capital controls and a rate set by the government.

Also known as the Li Keqian index. Too bad he has been marginalized by Xi.

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