China Trade in Review 2025

The General Administration of Customs (GACC) reported on 14 January 2026 that China's total goods trade in 2025 was 45.47 trillion yuan, 3.8 % more than in 2024 and a new high. Exports rose 6.1 % to 26.99 trillion yuan; imports were almost flat at 18.48 trillion yuan (+0.5 %). The resulting surplus of 8.51 trillion yuan — roughly 1.2 trillion US dollars at the year's average rate — was itself a record and became a political fact in every trading partner's capital.

In dollar terms customs put the total at about 6.51 trillion. Growth in dollars was lower than in yuan because the renminbi strengthened modestly against the dollar over the year; comparisons with partner-country statistics should be made in dollars.

ASEAN stayed China's largest trading partner at 7.55 trillion yuan (+8 %), the European Union second at 5.93 trillion yuan (+6 %). Trade with Belt and Road partner countries reached 23.6 trillion yuan (+6.3 %) and, at 51.9 % of the total, was for the first time more than half of China's trade, according to the same GACC release.

The United States was the exception. US Census data record goods imports from China of 308.7 billion US dollars in 2025, down 29.9 % on 2024, and total two-way goods and services trade of 494.6 billion US dollars, down 25.1 %. Chinese customs figures for exports to the US fell by double digits every month of the second half, with a 29 % year-on-year decline in November reported by CNBC on 8 December 2025. The gap between US and Chinese statistics on the same flow — Hong Kong re-exports, transshipment through Southeast Asia and valuation differences — widened as trade was rerouted.

Exports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and solar products — the 'new three' — continued to grow in volume even as prices fell, with Europe, the Gulf, Southeast Asia and Latin America replacing the United States as the destination for cars and storage systems. Machinery and electrical equipment remained the largest category by value; ships and rare-earth products grew fast from a small base. Labour-intensive goods — toys, footwear, furniture, textiles — grew slowly or fell as production moved to Vietnam, Bangladesh and Mexico.

The export mix was also shaped by policy at home: Beijing cut the export VAT rebate on solar products from 13 % to 9 % in December 2024 and announced in January 2026 that it would cancel it from 1 April 2026 and phase out the battery rebate, a deliberate move to stop price competition that had drawn trade-defence measures abroad.

Imports grew only 0.5 %. Lower commodity prices — crude oil, iron ore, coal — held down the value of the largest import lines even where volumes rose; integrated circuits remained the single largest import product by value; agricultural imports shifted away from the United States towards Brazil and Argentina during the tariff dispute, before the October 2025 arrangement restored soybean purchases with a commitment of 25 million tonnes a year through 2028 reported by China Briefing.

The China International Import Expo in November 2025 and the reduction of import tariffs on selected goods were the policy signals on the import side; the numbers said that domestic demand, not policy, set the pace.

The year opened with the new US administration's tariff escalation on Chinese goods in the spring, Chinese retaliatory tariffs, and export controls on rare earths and related magnets in April; it closed with the October 2025 arrangement under which China removed retaliatory tariffs on US agricultural goods and suspended export restrictions on gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite until 27 November 2026, while US Section 301 tariffs and the 10 % reciprocal tariff stayed in place.

Two structural changes with direct trade effects took hold in 2025: the end of the US de minimis exemption for low-value parcels from China, which pushed cross-border e-commerce into formal entry and local warehousing, and the expansion of China's unilateral visa-free scheme to 46 and then, in February 2026, 50 countries, which lowered the cost of business travel for buyers from Europe, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The China–Europe Railway Express ran 20,022 trains in 2025 (+3.2 %) carrying 2.05 million TEU (−1.3 %) according to Upply's analysis of official figures; westbound departures from China rose 14.4 %, eastbound trains fell 6.1 %, so the corridor's imbalance grew. Container shipping spent the year on Cape of Good Hope routing for Asia–Europe as Houthi attacks in the Red Sea kept most lines away from Suez, which kept rates above pre-2023 levels despite a growing fleet.