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Joan van Heijster (2019)Chinese Political Science Review. 5, pp. 50–73Abstract. In China, economic development has been almost exclusively defined through the lens of gross domestic product (GDP). Additionally, the indicator is deeply ingrained in national and local policymaking. Despite its power, we know almost nothing about how GDP gained such a politically prominent position in China. This paper therefore asks: how was GDP embraced politically and integrated into the Chinese governance system in the mid-1980s and 1990s? The paper argues that in China GDP appropriated a symbolic function. Chinese politicians used the indicator as an ‘instrument of imagination’ and conceptualized the political goal of achieving modernization in terms of GDP. GDP improved the practical applicability and persuasiveness of the modernization narrative by reducing uncertainty and strengthening China’s socialist identity. Furthermore, the symbolic appropriation shaped the adoption of GDP targets in Five-Year Plans as well as the uptake of GDP in the local performance assessment system as a control tool. The Chinese case shows that macroeconomic indicators have different social functions, which make them dynamic tools that can be adjusted to a diverse range of societies. The empirical analysis is based on personal interviews with statisticians in China and the World Bank and extensive document analysis. Excerpt.  "2. The Competing Functions of Indicators Macroeconomic  indicators such as GDP are political tools, which can shape the world  in which we live and are constituted by it (Espeland and Stevens 2008;  Diaz-Bone and Didier 2016). They are  not static technical–objective instruments detached from social  reality, but always have a socio-political basis and are produced and  used with a purpose. Indicators are dynamic tools that exercise power  and can be consequential in their use (Espeland 2012:  60). To analyse how GDP gained power in the Chinese context we have to  know how the indicator became embedded in Chinese society. Therefore,  the paper must analyse who used the indicator, in which form, and for  what purpose. This approach builds on the idea  that statistics and indicators are objects of politics. It acknowledges  that in different political contexts indicators can appropriate various  functions. To make this approach applicable to a wide variety of cases,  the paper extends the array of functions  beyond the information function GDP fulfilled in the West. It develops a  conceptual framework that distinguishes between the: (1) symbolic  function and (2) control function. Link to the article online