Trade & Exports

China's export engine is still running at high volume, but the structural shift is now measurable: trade with other SCO members hit 8% of China's total foreign trade, rising from $12.1 billion in 2001 to $523.5 billion in 2025, according to MOFCOM spokesperson Huang Ling ¹. This is the strongest anchor yet for the diversification story — Beijing is actively building alternative trade architecture even as Washington keeps the surplus issue on the G20 agenda. The combination of value-chain upgrading, geographic diversification, and accumulated trade remedies defines the current moment.

The value-chain story remains centered on high-end manufacturing. Liaoning's Jan–Jul exports rose 12.2% to 2634.8 billion yuan, with machinery and electronics accounting for 53.3% (up 2.9 percentage points); ship exports grew 1.78 times and industrial robots 164.2% ². Hengli Heavy Industry's two more VLCC orders from Greece's Danaos (20 total) and the first contract with Italy's Pemont for two LRII tankers signal entry into southern-European high-end shipbuilding ². The 'smile curve' shift — from assembly to design and core components — is now the dominant export dynamic.

New diversification vectors are multiplying. Zhejiang's trade with other SCO members hit a record 292.03 billion yuan in Jan–Jul (+9.8%), with imports up 20.2%, and mechanical/electrical products at 52.7% of exports ³. The CCPIT is stepping up SCO business matchmaking, industrial-supply-chain cooperation, and commercial legal services; six SCO member states exhibited at the fourth China International Supply Chain Expo in June ⁴. Regional trade-promotion events are also broadening: Liaoning's third export fair in Ulaanbaatar signed a $4 million steel-structure order ⁵, Macao's Singapore roadshow produced 74 signed agreements ⁶, and the 30th Shandong-Taiwan trade fair in Weifang pointed to deeper cross-strait industrial integration ⁷.

Green-mobility exports continue to deepen in both value-added and geography. Shandong shipped articulated CNG buses to Cartagena, Colombia, on August 29 ⁸. Jiangsu's electric-motorcycle/bicycle exports rose 38.8% and Taicang port cleared about 790,000 vehicles (+80%), including 480,000 new-energy vehicles (+102%), with system-level exports like Malaysia's Kuching hydrogen smart-rail project ⁹. Meanwhile, the August manufacturing PMI rose 0.6 points to 49.8, with new orders at 50.6 and production at 50.4 — but small firms remain at 47.9 and employment fell to 48.7, so domestic demand is not yet strong enough to substitute for external demand ¹⁰.

The risk side keeps accreting. US final affirmative anti-dumping and countervailing determinations on van-type trailers took effect in late August ^11,12, and Treasury Secretary Bessent has framed China's surplus as a systemic issue ahead of the G20 ¹³ — story blocked by Bloomberg's paywall; prior reporting carried the substance]. The multilateral layer is where pressure is building faster than the bilateral tariff track. China is also deepening ties with Russia: Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang will attend the Eastern Economic Forum on September 2–4, with investment and energy meetings scheduled ¹⁴.

Outlook: high export volumes and a large surplus persist, value-chain upgrading continues, and non-US diversification is broadening — but the accumulation of trade remedies and G20-level imbalance debate is the principal risk. The next tests are full-year 2026 destination data and the G20 communiqué.