> Thailand has a PPP of 3x China.

Where are you getting this? I'm no economist, but based on a simple search and data from wikipedia [1], your number seems wildly incorrect.

> However, the Chinese GDP number is widely known to be inflated

And BIS (Bank of International settlements) notes [2] "There are studies that contradict these results and find that the official data is roughly correct and may even understate the "true" economic growth (e.g. Holz, 2006a, 2006b; Clark et al., 2017a, 2017b; Perkins and Rawski, 2008)."

GDP is just one number that is inaccurate everywhere, it's more of a 'pulse'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... [2] https://www.bis.org/publ/work925.htm