The article mentions China overstated its growth by an average of 1.7 percentage points per year since 2008. Best I recollect from back when I was reading Pett

The article mentions China overstated its growth by an average of 1.7 percentage points per year since 2008. Best I recollect from back when I was reading Pettis' blog on a regular basis, that figure is actually lower than what he was been suggesting China had been overstating its growth by in the decade prior to 2008. Pettis is about as specialized in China financial markets as you can get, having basically studied and blogging about the stuff exclusively insofar as I'm aware while living and teaching finance there. He has many criticisms of how China is reporting numbers. One in particular is that local officials are expected to meet certain GDP targets. When the numbers don't look like they'll be in, they'll take on debt and build a bridge to nowhere to make their numbers. The point being, from where I'm standing from there doesn't seem to be anything new in the magnitude of the error. (It's great if the article made you privy about how overstated the economy was.)