SINGAPORE—A severe slowdown for China’s economy during a year of acute political sensitivity for Chinese leader Xi Jinping is testing the credibility of Beijing’s official economic data.
Figures this month illustrated an economy in free fall in April as lockdowns shut stores and factories, snarled logistics networks and kept millions of people cooped up at home for weeks. That bleak picture was broadly in line with the signals coming from business surveys, corporate earnings and a host of nonofficial data sources that previously pointed to a dramatic slowdown.
