Is there anyone with two braincells to rub together who believes that China actually hit a 7% growth rate in the last quarter? I don’t,

Not only are the Chinese stats suspect at the top levels, but every regional and local government is feeding them data that is driven by what they think their higher-ups want to hear:

China’s economy grew an annual 7 percent in the second quarter, steady with the previous quarter and slightly better than analysts’ forecasts, though further stimulus is still expected after the quarter ended with a stock market crash.

It has been a difficult year for the world’s second-largest economy. Slowing growth in trade, investment and domestic demand has been compounded by a cooling property sector, deflationary pressure, and most recently a stock market crash, so the recent sequence of data releases showing signs of improvement may help buttress faltering confidence in the effectiveness of prior policy support measures.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast gross domestic product (GDP) in the world’s second-largest economy would grow 6.9 percent in April-June from a year earlier, compared with 7.0 percent in the March quarter.

On a quarterly basis, the economy grew 1.7 percent compared with 1.4 percent in the March quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

Monthly activity data, released alongside the GDP report, also beat expectations across the board to show signs of a rebound, with factory output hitting a five-month high.

Yeah, right.  And the Chinese stock market is not melting down right now.