The Japan Times - China's trade surplus hit record $1.2 trillion in 2025

Last year's bruising trade war between Washington and Beijing -- which at one point saw reciprocal tariffs in the triple digits -- led to a 20 percent plunge year-on-year in China's exports to the United States, with imports falling 14.6 percent.

But other trade partners more than filled the gap, increasing Chinese exports overall by 5.5 percent in 2025, while imports stayed flat in dollar terms.

Shipments to the ASEAN group of Southeast Asian nations rose 13.4 percent year-on-year, while exports to Africa saw 25.8 percent growth.

Exports to the European Union were also up 8.4 percent, but imports from the bloc dipped.

Roiling trade tensions between the EU and China showed signs of easing on Monday when Brussels said Chinese electric vehicle makers could offer price undertakings -- which set minimum prices for exporters -- which would replace tariffs.

Beijing welcomed the move.

-- 'Continued resilience' --

China's trade in 2025 "surpassed 45 trillion yuan ($6.4 trillion) for the first time, setting a new historical high," vice customs minister Wang Jun told a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

"It should be noted that some countries politicise economic and trade issues, restricting high-tech product exports to China under various pretexts," Wang said, in an apparent reference to the US tariffs and export controls.

"Otherwise, we would have imported even more."

December's figures showed strong growth, with exports up 6.6 percent and imports jumping 5.7 percent year-on-year.

"We expect this resilience to continue through 2026," said Zichun Huang, China economist at Capital Economics, in a note.

"One risk to the export outlook is that the trade truce with the US doesn't last. Trump's threat to impose a 25 percent tariff on countries doing business with Iran underscores the potential for renewed trade tensions," Huang said.

The White House has jousted with Beijing over Trump's sweeping tariffs but reached a broad truce with China after a major escalation in the spring.

"(China's) strong export growth helps to mitigate the weak domestic demand," according to Zhiwei Zhang at Pinpoint Asset Management.

"Combined with the booming stock market and stable US-China relations, the government is likely to keep the macro policy stance unchanged at least in the first quarter," he said.

Going forward in 2026, China's market will "open more" and "still be an opportunity for the world" Wang Jun said Wednesday.

T.Ueda--JT