“All planning must be practical and realistic, pursuing genuine growth without any artificial inflation, and promoting high-quality, sustainable development.”
At the Central Economic Work Conference in December 2025, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly put forward such a requirement for the formulation of national and local “15th Five-Year Plan” and special plans.
Pursuing genuine growth without any artificial inflation, the key is “substance.” The opposite is the trick of “falseness”: playing number games, buying rankings on lists, engaging in statistical fraud, and fooling superiors and the public by fabricating achievements.
Among the typical problems of formalism reported by the central level this year to reduce burdens at the grassroots, some inflated performance through fake trade, increasing the risk of losses to state assets; some required enterprises to provide false supporting materials, even fabricating data on behalf of enterprises; some, just to make data look good, frequently conducted rankings and pressure at the grassroots level… The “achievements” and “growth” obtained through “false” means naturally contain a lot of water and bubbles.
Injecting water into political achievements is a typical manifestation of a misguided view of performance. Some leading officials, seeking “advancement” or taking “shortcuts,” resort to crooked tactics in numbers, materials, and propaganda, fabricating data and exaggerating facts, seriously damaging the political ecology and development foundation of local areas and departments, falling into a vicious cycle of “numbers produce officials, officials produce numbers.”
Political achievements value “substance.” During the 2017 National Two Sessions, a representative discussed cracking down on falsification of economic data. Xi Jinping said: “Clearing up the numbers, getting to the bottom, and squeezing out the water, although the numbers you present may not look very good, I think they actually look very good.” In Xi’s view, “these are open and honest numbers.”
Measuring the performance of party members and officials is not about whether the numbers look good or the rankings are high, but whether development is effective, high-quality, and sustainable, and whether the people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security has been enhanced.
Xi Jinping pointed out: “What we want is a genuine speed without any artificial inflation, a speed that improves people’s livelihoods and ensures sufficient employment, a speed that simultaneously increases labor productivity, enhances economic vitality, and achieves results in structural adjustment, and a speed that improves the quality and efficiency of economic development without causing aftereffects.”
“Genuine, without any artificial inflation” is not only the correct view of performance that party members and officials must establish and practice, but also an important methodology for undertaking work and taking on responsibilities.