Two stories, one common theme: distrust of Chinese figures. Beijing has begun an urgent national audit to determine the government’s true debt levels. And in Hong Kong, regulators have been granted power to wind up China Metal Recycling, a scrap dealer, on suspicion it inflated its reported figures. Neither event will surprise China watchers.

Since fears about fraud in Chinese companies became a hot topic in 2011, investors have moderated their expectations. Back then, Hong Kong-listed Chinese stocks’ price/earnings ratios offered a 7 per cent discount to emerging markets. Now it is almost a third. Some of the China re-rating reflects slowing growth and debt worries, of course, but it is worth noting that analysts are still expecting corporate China’s earnings to grow by a tenth this year and next, according to Citi. There will doubtless be some western surprise that Beijing’s bean counters do not already have the debt data to hand. But systems develop at different speeds around the world: the US did not have a central bank until the point at which it became the world’s biggest economy. And data suspicion is not the sole preserve of China: it is only five years since disbelief in western banks’ reported asset values became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As to how much debt there is, who knows? The International Monetary Fund last month estimated China’s debt at close to 50 per cent of gross domestic product. Other estimates vary, underlining the timeliness of Beijing’s attempt to figure out what it owes. If China wants its numbers and its corporate reporting to be trusted by outsiders, it has to make them more transparent still – and be patient as changing a reputation takes time.