As to why the number are odd, its anyone's guess. I'm sure there are competing interests at various gov levels that would over or under-report. Just as likely

As to why the number are odd, its anyone's guess. I'm sure there are competing interests at various gov levels that would over or under-report. Just as likely is the various accounting systems for determining the numbers are flawed. Possibly not intentionally flawed, but these number are hard to assess. So its not surprising to see when you aggregate them and pull from different sources (different methods of reporting and guessing at the numbers) you may see wild discrepancies. I doubt that numbers over the last 8 years were correct either. The difference is no one cared to question them. As to the view that its a landmark for the Chinese press to openly suspect the numbers, I don't think its such a landmark. I read the Shanghai and China Daily papers (English) every day while in Shanghai. I've been reading them for years. There is always info on gov corruption, fund misuse, crime, etc in the papers. I find the reporting style much better than most mass media U.S. papers. There are certain hot button issues that are suppressed, but that takes an active effort on each issue. Lots of negative information gets printed. Let me put it another way. What is the current debt obligations of all investments banks on Wall Street? The numbers I've read (from different seemingly credible sources) are wildly different. I would guess that most locals in China when reading something like "average urban wages in China rose 13 per cent" take it as laughable. Not just because they don't feel it in their own pocket, but they know its almost impossible to know such a number.