The China Story: The 5% Illusion

How China counts its economy—and why the most important number in global macro is almost certainly wrong.

Every quarter, China’s National Bureau of Statistics releases a number, and every quarter, global markets move.

The number is GDP growth.

For 2024, it was 5.0 percent—precisely on target, as it almost always is. Analysts nod, fund managers rebalance, central banks update their models.

It probably shouldn’t.

This is not a fringe argument. It is the conside…