How good are Communist China's statistics? An attempt to answer this basic but vexing question has led me to investigate the working of its state statistical service. Since there was hardly any statistical system to speak of before 1949, did Peking manage to set one up that was actually workable? When did this happen and how did it develop? Where were official statistics produced and finalised? Were they used for planning purposes at different government levels? How were basic data obtained from the primary reporting units in different sectors of the economy? What mechanism was introduced to provide a degree of control over the quality of data? What were the size and quality of the statistical working force? What did occur in 1958 and 1959 when current official statistics had to be scaled down drastically from earlier officially authenticated claims? Are the revised figures satisfactory? Why have so few statistical materials been released since 1959? The search into these and many more questions has resulted in a volume on The Statistical System of Communist China, recently (1962) published by the University of California Press.