Why China’s energy saving drive may be wasted

To curb wasteful energy consumption that has arisen because of the unfettered pursuit of high-speed growth in gross domestic product (GDP), China has begun to introduce energy efficiency as a yardstick to evaluate the performance of local officials. However, if Beijing fails to find effective measures to stop the malpractice of falsifying economic statistics at the localities, the new yardstick could well be distorted to serve local interests.

It surely represents progress now that Beijing has introduced energy-efficient growth as the yardstick to evaluate officials’ performance. However, if the rampant malpractice of falsifying economic statistics at the local level cannot be stopped, the new yardstick could be easily bent to serve local officials’ interests.
For it is not hard to understand that, given a fixed quantity of energy consumed, if the GDP figure is inflated, the per-unit-GDP energy consumption is lowered. And there are many tricks local officials use to inflate the GDP figures. A popular joke among Chinese officials about how GDP is “generated” is very revealing in this regard.

Asia Times