Even China’s official economic figures look bleak

When china was locked down during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020, economic forecasters had to make two predictions: how much would the economy suffer? And how much of this suffering would the official statistics be allowed to reflect? When China reported a historic 13.5% decline in industrial production in January and February 2020, compared with a year earlier, it surprised many forecasters not because it diverged from their bleak view of the economy, but because it challenged their cynical view of the statisticians.

Now that China is squirming under its most stringent lockdowns since early 2020, the same conundrum has returned. How bad will the economy get? And how faithful will the data be? An early answer to both questions arrived this week. The data were worse than expected, and therefore worthier than feared.