This article, published in Third World Quarterly, challenged frontally the statistical manipulation of inequality data by the IMF and World Bank to support flawed claims that neoliberal policies are responsible for a reduction in international inequality and also for China’s success. It shows that this statistical manipulation rests on a double deceit: the substitution of PPP or ‘Purchasing Power Parity’ measures for monetary measures of national output and consumption, and the use of cherry-picked statistical aggregates to conceal the clear and persistent difference between the third and first worlds, Cite as: Freeman, A. 2009. Third World Quarterly Vol 30(8) December 2009. pp1427-1448.