The Paradox of the Chinese Superpower

The Paradox of the Chinese Superpower refers to the increasing economic uncertainty that surrounds the world's fastest-growing nation, China. This is because of obscurity surrounding Chinese finances and years of systematic exploitation of most other countries' relative observance of international trading laws that has led to a resentment of Chinese power in East Asia and the Western Hemisphere.

The concept of the 'collapse' or 'weakness' of China predates this paradox by at least twenty years, referring to publications which incorrectly judged Chinese strength and predicted at the very least some form of collapse or pushback. This is, while on the surface level similar, not at all the same as the paradox, as most of them are not relative judgements of Chinese political and economic stability, but rather predictions of the future.

The fundamental issue with the Chinese Superpower is that, unlike most other nations, most organisations do not have accurate or even proper numbers that correlate to the Chinese economy. It is likely that Chinese growth, is at least to some extent artificial or exaggerated, although there have been few incidents in which that could be directly confirmed. Therefore, there is no possible way to properly confirm what amount of strength, not just economically but militarily and politically, the Chinese nation possesses.

Incidents with Chinese overclaiming
From Wikipedia;

"In recent years, China claimed growth numbers come under scrutiny, with both non-Chinese financial and economic observers as well as Chinese government officials claiming the government has been inflating its economic output.  Instances of overclaiming officially came to light when: "Analyst Gary Shilling suggests that China's official figures are off by as much as 50%; he estimates an actual growth rate of 3.5% rather than 7%. Other analysts like Wilbur Ross and Donald Straszheim agree with this assessment, and estimate a growth rate at around 4% or less. Donald Straszheim even went as far to say that growth rates in what he describes as old China are as low as 0%, while explaining that the "new" China of services and consumer spending is tough to measure in the absence of robust data from the private sector.[https://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/19/what-is-chinas-actual-gdp-experts-weigh-in.html "
 * Binhai New Area in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin. Tianjin's trillion yuan GDP claim for 2016, was in fact a third lower, at 665 billion yuan ($103 billion).
 * Inner Mongolia’s government also stated, that about 40% of the region’s reported industrial output in 2016, as well as 26% of reported fiscal revenues, did not exist.
 * The provincial government in Liaoning publicly admitted that the government has been cooking the books when publishing it's economic data from 2011 to 2014. Liaoning, frequently called China's rust belt, admitted in 2017, that local GDP numbers from 2011 to 2014 had been inflated artificially by about 20%.

Incidents as the above mentioned state have consequently led to mistrust in Chinese GDP estimates and general economic data. According to a Wall Street Journal article in 2015, 96% of U.S economists stated that 'China’s gross-domestic-product estimates don’t accurately reflect the state of the world’s second-biggest economy.'. It is to be noted that this survey did not require all questions to be answered. This reflects a growing concern among economists across the Western Hemisphere that reported Chinese growth is becoming less and less accurate.

Chinese debt
While the official numbers for national Chinese debt stand at CN¥ 36 trillion (US$ 5.2 trillion), recent reports from S&P Global Ratings state that there may be additional Chinese debt at 40 trillion yuan ($5.8 trillion) from local governments in off-balance sheet debt. This has led to several business news outlets to speculate that this could prove to be disastrous for the Chinese economy, such as Business Insider's Will Martin, who wrote an article titled 'China’s hidden $6 trillion debt pile is an ‘iceberg’ posing a ‘titanic risk .