China’s economic data has long been questioned by investors dubious of its elevated official growth rates, year-in, year-out. Now, as the nation’s expansion moderates, it’s the uncanny consistency of the slowdown that has some analysts skeptical. Take the last six quarters of gross domestic product growth, which went like this: 7.1 percent, 7.2 percent, 7.0 percent, 7.0 percent, 6.9 percent and 6.8 percent. On average, the GDP growth rate has changed 0.2 percentage points each quarter since 2011, less than half of the mean for the rest of the world’s top 10 economies. During the same period of time, China’s economy contended with crude oil prices that gyrated from $35 to $114 a barrel, the country’s exports went from expansion to contraction, and volatility in its stock market surpassed that in other major countries. “The data are remarkably smooth and you don’t see that in other major economies,” said […]