A forceful warning against wasteful government investments intended for local authorities appeared on Sunday in a central-level newspaper dedicated to economic policy. Though the source of the message was masked in one sense by an official pen name, its import was nonetheless unmistakable — revealing a key fact about how China communicates policy priorities.
The commentary, published in the Economic Daily (经济日报), a newspaper directly under the State Council, highlighted concerning evidence of declining investment efficiency as Beijing pushes to stimulate domestic demand. The article noted that China’s incremental capital output ratio — which measures how much new investment is required to produce each additional unit of GDP growth — has deteriorated from 2.84 in 2008 to 9.44 in 2023, higher numbers indicating worsening efficiency.
These numbers suggest that China now requires more than three times the capital investment to generate the same economic output as 15 years ago. This, the commentary suggests, pointing a finger at local governments, indicates serious structural inefficiencies in how capital is being deployed across China’s economy.
The article appeared under the byline “Jin Guanping” (金观平), a homophone for “Economic Daily’s observational commentary” (经济日报观察评论), signaling that this represents an institutional position rather than an individual author’s view. In all likelihood, “Jin Guanping” commentaries are penned by a “writing group,” or xiezuozu (写作组) at the newspaper, with senior editors and possibly officials reviewing and approving the final text before publication.
“Some localities blindly launched vanity projects to pursue short-term political achievements, causing large amounts of capital to flow into inefficient projects,” the commentary said. It castigated local governments for pursuing what it called “grandiose plans” (大手笔) that had resulted in “massive debts” (大笔债) — and, in the end, yielded little in terms of economic benefits.
Finance Minister Lan Fo’an (蓝佛安) revealed in November that local governments had accumulated 14.3 trillion RMB (1.97 trillion dollars) in hidden debts by the end of 2023, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
What’s in a Pen Name?
The “Jin Guanping” byline has frequently been used for commentaries at the Economic Daily, pointing to consensus viewpoints in the central government. On average, the byline appeared for 13.3 articles per month in the newspaper over the past year. What distinguishes Sunday’s commentary, however, is its cautionary tone. It directly criticizes wasteful projects with terms like “grand gestures” (大手笔) and “large-scale debt” (大笔债), and it warns that such cases bear “profound lessons” (教训深刻).
This practice of using “homophonous pen names” is an internal coding system within China’s official state media. The pen names, even as they seem to disguise the source of the messaging, often work as signals indicating the institutional weight behind particular messages. As we have previously noted at the China Media Project, these propaganda labels “form an internal system of not-so-secret codes by which those in positions of power, both departments and individuals, can voice their official positions and put their stamp on a course or policy.”
The practice of using official pen names dates back decades in China. During the Cultural Revolution, radical factions used pen names to signal political attacks. In more recent times, pen names have regularly appeared in Party-state media such as the flagship People’s Daily. For example, the pen name “Zhong Sheng” (钟声) — a homophone for “Voice of China” — is used to mark important commentaries on international affairs where the leadership wishes to register its view, often critical, of foreign countries without direct attribution. The pen name “Guo Jiping” (国纪平), a homophone of “important international commentary,” is used on occasion to mark international affairs commentaries that represent the central CCP consensus.
By parsing these coded bylines, observers can better understand not just what is being communicated, but who might be communicating it and how seriously the message should be regarded within China’s complex political-economic system.
The appearance of this stern warning under the “Jin Guanping” byline at this particular moment suggests heightened central government concern about local investment practices as China struggles to revive economic growth.
