Editorial: Officials Who Cook the Books Must Be Held Responsible

The cover on economic data fabrication has been blown.

Following Liaoning province’s admission that it embellished its government economic figures a year ago, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Tianjin municipality and some other governments have also admitted bloating their data. Inner Mongolia, for example, said it overstated 2016 industrial output by 290 billion yuan ($45.3 billion), or 40% of the region’s total.