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Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics in the news and in life.

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Chinese flag against statistics

16/12/2023 GMT

China’s missing numbers

BBC World Service - More or Less, China’s missing numbers

How the Chinese state make inconvenient statistics disappear

How the Chinese state make inconvenient statistics on youth unemployment and covid deaths disappear.

How many young people are unemployed? How much debt does the government owe? How many people have died from Covid? 

These are questions that many governments will keep regularly updated. But in China they have disappeared. 

We investigate the reasons behind China’s missing numbers. 

Reporter: Celia Hatton
Series Producer: Tom Colls
Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot
Editor: Richard Vadon

(Picture: Chinese flag behind a graph with statistics
Credit: Igor Kutyaev/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

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