Working with Chinese Government Data Sets: Potential Issues and Solutions

This paper will provide an overview of selected official statistics and data sets collected in the People’s Republic of China, with a particular focus on economic and financial data on mainland China. It will explore options beyond the official statistics, such as CNKI, China Data Online, and CEIC CDMNext, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these databases. It will also review the existing arguments surrounding the use of official Chinese statistics and how researchers need to identify any issues behind their data choices. The key takeaway is to avoid generalizing and judging the quality of Chinese data based on exceptions, but instead to approach official Chinese data with a nuanced approach.