"In Liaoning Province tax receipts and income from various fees were padded by 20-30% according to counties and cities during the period of 2011-2014. Inner Mongolia has said that 25% of the fiscal revenue stated for 2016 were actually fake."

That actually validates some of the slowdown that I saw while I was in China. Business felt slow, and it seems that there wasn't the fast feel anymore compared to 2007. Very little small company activities, and alot of economic activities seem to involve state-owned companies (and we all know how slow they are).

If we assume 20-30% fake data across most of its local provinces the last couple of years, this would probably place China's GDP growth at around 1% a year (maybe even negative), way below 7% consistently claimed by the government. However, the 1% would be consistent with the drop in exports in recent year.