The Chinese Communist Party values its reputation, and statistical data is directly related to that reputation. In order to maintain a facade of prosperity, the CCP often manipulates statistical data, making falsification a common practice. As a result, the data released by the statistical department is hardly trusted by anyone and becomes a target for online mockery.
Recently, the news of a 6.8% increase in average wages in the first quarter released by the CCP’s National Bureau of Statistics once again sparked ridicule online.
Netizens commented:
“Does anyone actually believe this?”
“Today’s dose of humor has arrived.”
“My wages haven’t increased at all, things are not cheaper either, I wonder how they came up with such data.”
“When will my share be given to me? Why am I not aware of it?”
“I’ll never catch up to the average.”
“I just did a quick calculation. My disposable income is approximately: one hundred yuan. Not bad, I’m satisfied. After all, compared to many who haven’t been paid, I am considered wealthy! Really!”
Statistical manipulation is indeed a technical skill. A high level of falsification can make the data appear genuine, making it difficult for the average person to detect. In this regard, the CCP’s statistical department is considered quite skilled. No wonder some joke that CCP statistics is a “magic discipline”.
For example, let’s take the 6.8% increase in average wages in the first quarter. Everyone believes this data is fabricated. In fact, there’s no need to fabricate it. Consider the following example:
If there were originally 10 people in society, one CEO with a monthly salary of 200,000 yuan, two programmers with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan each, and seven workers with a monthly salary of 5,000 yuan each, their average monthly wage is 33,500 yuan.
Now, with the economic downturn, three workers have been laid off from the seven remaining workers, resulting in no change in their monthly salary of 5,000 yuan. One of the programmers has been laid off, and the other one’s salary reduced to 40,000 yuan. The CEO cannot be removed, so let’s reduce the salary to 160,000 yuan. Now, the average monthly wage for the remaining six employees is how much? You can calculate it yourself – the answer is 36,667 yuan.
Do you see it? Either people are laid off or their salaries are reduced in society. The best outcome is merely maintaining the wage without alteration. But during statistical calculations, if the laid-off individuals are disregarded, and only the incomes of those still employed are considered, the average wage does increase, showing a growth of 9.4%.
Here’s another example. A company’s annual report shows a significant increase in sales revenue compared to the previous year. However, the sales department argues that it’s impossible, as they were not aware of any growth. Clearly, the financial department must be falsifying the data.
Upon cross-checking data with the finance department, it’s found that while there might be some discrepancies with the sales department, the difference isn’t significant.
As it turns out, the finance department lowered the data from the previous fiscal year, claiming that the previous year’s figures were inflated.
Therefore, when you’re told about increased income and profits this year, it’s possible that this could be an indicator that the data published from the previous year was unreliable. After all, who really cares about what happened a year ago?
What about next year? Simply squeeze a bit out of this year’s figures. This way, you can continue to show continuous growth happily.
If GDP and other data are calculated using such methods, should we still worry about unattractive data?
责任编者：金岳