A closer look suggests that much of the success was on paper. China’s overproduction of steel remains a challenge to the country’s growth model and a global source of discontent.

Steel and coal capacity cuts featured in development plans set out on Sunday at China’s annual National People’s Congress. Officials have sought since to highlight them as among the government’s top priorities.

The reductions in steel production are an attempt to upgrade an ageing industry that has contributed to years of heavy smog, soaring corporate debt, and global trade spats. Hundreds of facilities have been forced to shut down.

Yet some officials said many targeted plants were already idle and the campaign may have less impact on China’s — and the world’s — economy than the statistics suggest.

“We can’t be blindly optimistic about the present situation,” Liu Zhenjiang, party secretary of the state-backed China Iron and Steel Association, told an industry conference in November. “Part of the reduction this year was of already unproductive capacity, which had been idle for a long time.”

Beijing increasingly views the steel sector as an obstacle to its efforts to reorient China’s growth model. Chinese mills, once a point of national pride, make half the world’s steel but depend on state subsidies and bailout mergers to survive. From 2011 to 2015, global steel prices fell 70 per cent as Chinese companies flooded the market with cheap steel.

The US and Europe near the end of last year signalled they wouldn’t award China “market-economy” status, measures that would have further opened these markets to China. Chinese steel exports have drawn more than 100 trade complaints of dumping from its major trading partners between 2011 and 2016.

In its latest plan, unveiled last year, China’s leadership said it aims to shut down 50 million ­tonnes of steel capacity this year. Beijing set a 45 million tonne goal last year, which it said it overshot by at least 44 per cent.

“Our achievements last year exceeded the requirements, but of course we must never relax,” said Ning Jizhe, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees the campaign.

Xu Kunlin, the commission’s director-general, has proclaimed “visible results” from the campaign.

On paper, last year’s reported reductions of 65 million tonnes when added to 2017’s target would reduce total capacity in the world’s largest steel-producing nation by 10.5 per cent, more than half of Beijing’s goal to cut up to 14 per cent in the 2016-20 period.

Capacity cuts in theory make the sector more efficient, but don’t necessarily mean a cut in China’s steel production, which climbed 1.2 per cent last year to 808 million tonnes, still contributing to excess steel in global markets. Chinese consultancy Custeel said in an October report that 71 per cent of the cuts in the first nine months last year were of long-idled capacity.

Three years ago, officials in a rust-belt province, Hebei, showily detonated disused factories. Steel-association officials at the time said that such reduction amounted to theatre and suggested the destroyed plants had already been idle.

It can be difficult for Beijing officials to verify cuts reported in far-flung regions. Each year, local government officials submit to Beijing detailed lists of redundant capacity in mills. They specify facilities and machines, then demonstrate during audits that such capacity has been sealed up and disconnected from the electricity grid.

But government inspectors aren’t always able to ascertain whether these facilities can be reactivated or how long they have been idle.

“It’s hard to see a whole lot of progress was made in 2016, with closures offset by restarts and new facilities.” said Lauri Myllyvirta, an analyst with Greenpeace.

Excess capacity hangs over much of China’s industrial complex, including mining and metal sectors, as well as industries such as glass and cement.