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China's Growth an Accounting 'Miracle'

This article and the electricity quote is misleading. Since the author is going to be quoting from "the American Enterprise Institute", lets try a balance from the opposite end of the bias: "Xinhua news".

news.xinhuanet.com/eng...

" The slowing demand was mainly contributed by the industrial sector, according to CEC data. About 3.43 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity was used by the industry last year, up 3.83 percent from a year earlier, slower than the overall social power consumption growth rate for the first time.

Electricity used by the service industry and the rural and urban residents continued rapid growth, as the group was less affected by the financial crisis. "

There. The switch from export oriented economy to an internally facing one boosts "Service" economy and shrinks the exporting factories. This will cause a dip in raw electricity demand, when in face, the service sector's electricity use is growing very rapidly.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of the two bias.

What happened to USA's switch from manufacturing to to service economy happened over decades, China is having to do it in a few years; hence electricity supply/demand didn't have a chance to adapt.

GDP can grow despite electricity decline, precisely because of the switch to internal demand; as well as infrastructure construction, which doesn't take as much electricity as factories. Check the demand in raw concrete, copper and steel to see the truer picture.

The recovery is not all fake.