They don’t trust it, they just have no other figures to work off.

That's why they publish it. Not like there are (western adaptations of) the Li Keqiang Index

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-16/china-is-hiding-more-and-more-data-from-the-rest-of-the-world

1. At least have the decency to post the archive link https://archive.md/sgBQK
2. Youth unemployment in the article:

Calculating the actual employment rate is complex and it’s plausible the government decided the changing nature of the economy and labor patterns means their current model isn’t accurately reflecting reality.

Obtuse way to say that the category 16-24 olds are studying and not part of the labour force

3. Landsales: Communists don't like speculation with real estate and land. Shocker. Not like they've been announcing a shift away from real estate to EV/Solar Panels/etc.
4. Currency Reserves, Bond Transactions, Academic Information, Politicians' Biographies:

President Xi Jinping’s ideological battle with the US has also motivated Beijing to ringfence data it believes could advantage the Biden administration.

Based.

A 15 year trend of growth on average no matter how you measure it: market cap, number of nodes, transaction volume, transaction capacity, etc.

If you think that's the critique of bitcoin then you have been blinded by techbros optimizim on the tech. Also it's funny how you wave away bitcoin using up 1% of global electricity usage lol