Rory Smith

Sep 11, 2023 | lrb.co.uk | Arunabh Ghosh |Rory Smith |Georgina Sturge |Paul Johnson

At a dinner​ with the American ambassador in 2007, Li Keqiang, future premier of China, said that when he wanted to know what was happening to the country’s economy, he looked at the numbers for electricity use, rail cargo and bank lending. There was no point using the official GDP statistics, Li said, because they are ‘man-made’. That remark, which we know about thanks to WikiLeaks, is fascinating for two reasons.