China's GDP Statistics - The Elephant in the Room

Only around 2% of China's population actually pays regular taxes, so getting a clear economic picture using tax records just isn't feasible. This means that they have no other option than to rely on more first-hand data collection. A leaked comment by a top Chinese government official openly admitted that GDP figures were purely man-made in the 1990s. The problem then is that the National Bureau of Statistics of China is freely admitting to making discretionary adjustments to its data.