Rio - China: A wrong number — $102 billion — wiped $3.3 billion of value from Rio Tinto on Monday. The figure, purportedly the amount by which the Anglo-Australian miner has overcharged China for iron ore over six years, appeared on a little-known website linked to the Chinese State Secrets Bureau. The site, Baomi.org, disappeared on Monday, then reappeared with the Rio article removed. The episode may sound farcical, but it has the potential to damage China Inc nonetheless.

Rio’s profits from selling iron ore to China are a sensitive topic. Four of the miner’s employees were detained on suspicion of stealing state secrets last month. Baomi’s flawed analysis makes a damaging contribution to the issue. Rio’s accounts show $27 billion in sales of commodities to China from 2003 to the end of 2009. Add in rival BHP Billiton’s revenues and the total is $61 billion. The $102 billion figure looks to be rather the cash value of China’s total iron ore imports over six years — hardly the same as any “extra” profits made by the miners.

Wobbly maths are nothing new in Chinese official data. But at least the frequent discrepancies in GDP and unemployment can be attributed to difficulties in monitoring a country of 1.3 billion people. The likelihood is that this was simply an inaccurate article by one individual which does not reflect state thinking. But opinions spouted by publications with links to Beijing can be easily misconstrued as party diktat. The author of the Baomi article was an employee of the State Secrets Bureau and many observers assumed, wrongly, that he had some insider knowledge into the ongoing Rio probe. It is high time China gave more clarity over where “the state” starts and ends.

A lingering suspicion that the Baomi article wasn’t just the work of fringe writer may reinforce political caution towards China. US authorities are considering 55 per cent tariffs on Chinese tyre imports, amid accusations of dumping. On Monday, China’s Yanzhou Coal was reported to be in talks to buy Felix Resources for around $3 billion – a deal that requires approval from Felix’s regulators in Australia. China’s prospects of a favourable outcome in either situation will not have been boosted by the appearance of cooking up a case against Rio on flawed numbers.

The green shoots spotter: It is starting to look like the markets were prescient. From March on, most financial indicators were flashing green – rising stocks, narrowing credit spreads, increasing commodity prices. But actual economic green shoots have been harder to find. Finally, the ground is looking more verdant. For the first time in its 15-week history, the Breakingviews.com’s Green Shoots Spotter of economic newsflow is closer to “Stable” than “Getting Less Bad”. On its scale of 1 (Still in real trouble) to 5 (Rapid recovery), it jumped from 2.2 last week to a series-high of 2.7.

The green shoots spotter: It is starting to look like the markets were prescient. From March on, most financial indicators were flashing green – rising stocks, narrowing credit spreads, increasing commodity prices. But actual economic green shoots have been harder to find. Finally, the ground is looking more verdant. For the first time in its 15-week history, the Breakingviews.com’s Green Shoots Spotter of economic newsflow is closer to “Stable” than “Getting Less Bad”. On its scale of 1 (Still in real trouble) to 5 (Rapid recovery), it jumped from 2.2 last week to a series-high of 2.7.

The biggest good news last week was the decline in the US unemployment rate. Pessimists – there are still some out there – could pick holes in the data, but investors were probably right to see a real sign of stability. That went along with strong exports and orders from Germany. The markets are still far ahead of the data, but the whispers of a sharp V-shaped recovery are getting louder.

Still, pessimists need not abandon the gloom totally. They can argue that a recovery funded by massive government and monetary stimulus could prove tepid and short-lived. They too have some evidence: US retail sales declined in July, following a June decline in personal income (also announced last week). And one of the most sensitive indicators of world trade, the Baltic Dry Index, had its worst week since last October.