, Columnist
How Strong Is China’s Economy? GDP Alone Won’t Say
It’s a dynamic nation. The bottom line obscures a lot.
Li Keqiang, prime minister of China, is said to have called GDP “manmade.”
Photographer: Florian Gaertner/Photothek, via Getty Images
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It’s the go-to measure of an economy. But sometimes gross domestic product doesn’t tell you much.
A glance at China’s second-quarter GDP, released Monday, might suggest things are holding up pretty well in the world’s second-largest economy. The 6.7 percent increase from a year ago — just barely below the prior period — points to a China that weathered the early skirmishes of a trade war, continued its transition to a consumption-driven economy and isn’t suffering too much from a state campaign to rein in debt.