The Chinese Communist Party’s falsification of statistics at all levels of government is very common. Recently, the falsification of investment attraction data in three cities in Henan Province has become a hot topic. For example, in Wuyang County, the reported investment from both within and outside the province was 7.8 billion yuan, but only 100 million yuan actually came in. Experts analyze that as long as the CCP’s governing logic remains unchanged, the focus on indicators and data supremacy will continue to be a hard currency in the political arena, and it is only a matter of time before the next case of falsification is exposed.
On Wednesday, CCTV, the state-run broadcaster of the Chinese Communist Party, reported that from January to November 2025, Wuyang County in Luoyang, Henan Province, reported 7.8 billion yuan of external capital inflows to the province, but only less than 1 billion yuan actually arrived. Among these, the local enterprise Jinshan Group subsidiary (Jinhai) New Materials’ 5.8 billion yuan investment was counted as external provincial funding.
Li Longlong, the head of outsourcing at Jinshan Group, stated, “At that time, the project was said to be 4 billion yuan,” and “(the Commerce Bureau) didn’t require me to stamp or provide written documents, including spreadsheets. It was just a phone call to provide a number.”
What about the remaining 2 billion yuan of external provincial funds? Hu Guanghua, the director of the Commerce Bureau in Wuyang County, admitted that the remaining 2 billion yuan also did not come from outside the province but was local funds.
He explained, “We also have 16 projects of provincial investment, and they also have investments of tens of billions.”
The Wuyang County Investment Promotion Bureau only provided evidence for a little over 100 million yuan of provincial external funds, but the evidence was full of loopholes.
For example, the bank statements provided for the meat production project invested by a trading company in Wuhan all had transaction dates of 2024, not within the period of January to November 2025 for external provincial funds arrival.
Similarly, for a high-end PCB circuit intelligent control engineering research center project invested by a company in Beijing, three out of four bank statements had transaction dates in December 2025, outside the stipulated period.
For the new insulation material production project invested by a company in Sichuan with 10 million yuan, not a single bank deposit certificate was provided.
Similarly, for the high-end intelligent equipment manufacturing project with 3 million yuan investment by a company in Anhui, only bank statements for a little over 650,000 yuan were available.
Even the claims by three companies of depreciation on equipment, amounting to 29 million, 23 million, and 23 million respectively, were supported only by a paper from the companies without any third-party fixed asset evaluation reports.
The monthly report on provincial external funding from the Commerce Bureau of Guancheng District in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province showed that from April to September 2025, a company from Hainan invested a cumulative 960 million yuan in a local enterprise in the jurisdiction, but the supporting documents only included an investment contract without corresponding bank deposit certificates.
Zhang Wen, the general manager of a company in Henan, mentioned, “I don’t think the 960 million yuan will be deposited,” and “the project did not progress later and was not implemented, so this money definitely did not arrive.”
The report further revealed that Zhecheng County in Shangqiu City also fabricated more than 4 billion yuan of external provincial funds.
The root cause of data falsification lies in the pressure on grassroots levels to fulfill assessment tasks, necessitating them to resort to deceit.
Hu Guanghua, the director of the Commerce Bureau in Wuyang County, explained, “Even under the circumstances of inflated base figures, we are still required to show an increase, so we are quite helpless.”
Su Ling’en, the deputy director of the Commerce Bureau in Guancheng District, Zhengzhou City, explained, “The province sets targets for the cities, and the cities set targets for us. Sometimes our growth rate is about 2%, sometimes 3%.”
Regarding what happens if the targets are not met, Su Ling’en mentioned, “They don’t look at whether the actual task is completed, they look at your completion figures.”
The Executive Director of Taiwan Inspirational Association, Lai Rongwei, once told Radio Free Asia that the CCP operates under high-pressure systems, where officials at all levels are forced to “manufacture indicators” in order to preserve their careers.
In response to CCTV’s disclosure of its own shortcomings, Davy J. Wong, a Chinese-American economist, stated to Dajiyuan that this “self-disclosure of faults” is actually a selective way of shifting blame.
He believes, “Falsifying statistical data is no longer just a technical issue but a political tool. The central government’s move intends to shift some economic difficulties to local governments, especially those regions with economic autonomy.”
Chinese affairs expert Wang He also expressed to Dajiyuan that as long as the CCP’s governing logic remains unchanged, the focus on indicators and data supremacy will continue to be a mainstay in the political arena. Therefore, even if this storm settles down, the next case of falsification is only a matter of time.