Pollution cover-ups exposed in Chinese provinces 7 years ago
Yes, this is a significant problem because of the strange irony that for a communist country, the Chinese government is run like a business. There are targeted metrics and goals and promotions and pay increases tied to them. They've had a long documented history in the past with suspected gdp reporting fraud. Every time they add a new metric to monitor as a target there is the possibility of potential fraud or gaming the metric in an unproductive way such as planting and unplanting trees.