HONG KONG -- Following the Chinese press, one sometimes gets totally depressed and feels that there is no hope for the country, with its myriad problems. At other times, the opposite is true. This week, it is a mix. On different fronts, one sees a host of problems but, at the same time, it is clear that there are people who are trying to come to grips with them although there seems to be a lack of political will to solve the problems on the part of the powers that be.

Take statistics. Each year, China announces before yearend what its growth is for that year. This does not enhance confidence in Chinese figures. After all, it takes time for the different provinces to assemble their figures and send them to Beijing, where they are aggregated.

What is even stranger is that the figure announced is never the sum of those sent in by the provinces. The figure is always less, betraying a belief in Beijing that provincial figures cannot be trusted. So what one has, at the end, is an estimate based on Beijing's best guess of the extent to which various provinces have inflated their figures.