China has been hiding their economic performance for years. They are very good at. All statistics and data collection is state secret.
Truly this dismal performance of Chinese statics has been direct by the Communist Party itself. The irony is that the western economists never looked under the covers, they agreed with whatever Chinese reported. Only now they have begun to question the economic data coming out of China's official propaganda.
If you scale back the falsified statics to last ten years, China's claim of number one economic power will be denied. Rather it will fal third or fourth from the top.