We build upon the most recent development in the literature and estimate a comprehensive set of univariate and bivariate Unobserved Components models to study the varying long-run growth rate and output gap of the Chinese economy for the period of 1952–2017. We find that the long-run growth rate varied substantially, and thus the growth cycles played an important role in the Chinese economy. Specifically, the long run growth rate accelerated since the late 70s, peaked in the early 90s, and since