China’s export growth in August accelerated from the previous month, sending its trade surplus above $800 billion and threatening to increase tensions with trading partners, according to data released on Tuesday by its General Administration of Customs.
Overall exports from China rose by 25 percent in August from a year earlier in dollar terms. The growth was in line with economists’ forecasts in a Reuters survey and higher than July’s jump of nearly 24 percent.
Imports surged 28.2 percent from a year earlier, accelerating from July’s 27.5 percent increase but falling short of the 30 percent growth forecasted in the Reuters poll.
“Despite China’s strong import growth, exports are set to lead to a new record-high trade surplus this year,” Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said in a note.
“This could intensify pressure from trading partners to rebalance terms of trade.”
August’s trade surplus widened to $119.1 billion, from $112.5 billion in July, pushing the total trade surplus so far this year to $805.5 billion—roughly a 2.6 percent increase from the same period last year.
Exports are a vital growth driver for the world’s second-largest economy, which has already slowed amid sluggish consumption and investment at home.
In the first half of this year, net exports added around 0.8 percentage points to China’s GDP growth—a figure that is expected to rise in the third quarter, according to Song from Dutch bank ING.
China’s growth strategy has sparked growing concerns among its major trading partners.
After a meeting of finance ministers from the world’s 20 largest economies in Asheville, North Carolina, last week, they issued a statement criticizing countries’ overreliance on exports for growth, with Beijing as the only dissenter.
China’s economy expanded at the slowest pace in three years during the second quarter. Analysts and residents have long argued the real situation on the ground was grimmer than the official data indicated, pointing to the regime’s record of concealing information deemed harmful to its image.
People cross a road at sunset in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2026. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
Exports Surge
Shipments to the United States jumped 34.4 percent in August compared with a year earlier, nearly doubling the 17.5 percent increase in July, according to calculations made by The Epoch Times based on official data.
China’s exports to South Korea continued to grow, expanding nearly 49.2 percent year on year in August, while shipments to Africa jumped more than 30 percent.
Exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) slowed slightly, but were still up by 30.2 percent last month.
Among them, shipments to Vietnam surged 33 percent, while exports to Malaysia jumped almost 59 percent.
In contrast, shipments to the European Union recorded a 6.6 percent rise in August, down sharply from the nearly 16 percent increase in July.
Brussels has set an October deadline for Beijing to rebalance the relationship and curb excessive exports that hammer the bloc’s homegrown industries.
EU leaders have threatened harsh measures if negotiations fail to deliver concrete results.
Beijing’s latest trade data also came weeks before an expected meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington.
Trump has said that he would host Xi at the White House on Sept. 24. While Beijing has not given any exact date, China’s top diplomat has said Xi would pay a state visit this autumn.
The current U.S.-China trade truce, reached last October following a Trump-Xi summit in South Korea, lasted only one year and is set to expire shortly after Xi’s visit unless the two leaders agree to renew it.
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