> The "official" data reported by China can't be attempted to be believed. Most of it is highly manipulated. Attempts at independent verification are punished, or blocked by making the raw data a state secret.

This has not been really true for at least a decade.

Well they might attempt to play with statistics, there are definitely foreign investigative reports that are able to verify most numbers, especially when it comes to exports.

And most of those foreign numbers are very close to what China reports.