China plans to tackle fraudulent data with harsh new penalties for local leaders and the help of AI
- Beijing is amending its statistics law to crack down on fraudulent data that has caused some observers to question official economic statistics
- The government has proposed harsh penalties for local leaders and outlined plans to deploy cloud computing and artificial intelligence to solve the problem
China is quietly taking steps to root out fraudulent data by threatening to punish regional leaders and deploy artificial intelligence amid scepticism about the reliability of its economic statistics.
Debate about the accuracy of China’s economic data heated up again this month after the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released figures showing economic growth slowed to 6 per cent in the third quarter of this year, the lowest pace since 1992.
But in a now-deleted social media post, Xiang Songzuo – one of the few outspoken critics of China’s data quality – said the growth rate could be overstated, given government revenue only grew 3 per cent from a year earlier and corporate profits from January to August fell 1.7 per cent.
The criticism reflected the tough job facing China’s statistics officials. On the one hand, they cannot accept any suggestion the country’s data is unreliable, but on the other, they have to deal with rampant data fraud from local officials who have incentives – and the capability – to fabricate figures for political gain.
As part of an effort to clamp down on local government fraud, Beijing plans to amend its toothless statistics law to hold top local leaders, mayors and governors, accountable for cheating. Local statisticians as well as regional executive leaders will be punished by sacking if found to have provided fraudulent data, according to a draft amendment of the law.