PHOTO: AFP/FILE

AFP, Beijing

China’s exports missed expectations but expanded 4.4 percent year-on-year in August, official data showed Monday, with falling US shipments offset by a jump in those to Southeast Asia and Europe.

Trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have been on a rollercoaster ride in 2025, with both sides slapping escalating tariffs on each other.

Exports to the United States -- China’s largest single-country trading partner -- continued to fall in August, Monday’s data showed, sinking 11.8 percent from the previous month and 33.1 percent from a year earlier. However, shipments to the European Union jumped 10.4 percent and those to the Association of Southeast Asian nations rose 22.5 percent year-on-year.

Overall though exports failed to meet a Bloomberg forecast of 5.5 percent.

Imports similarly did not meet expectations, growing 1.3 percent year-on-year in August, compared with a forecast of 3.4 percent.

Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said the “frontloading” of exports -- accelerating shipments in anticipation of further tariffs -- is “probably fading away”.

The resilience of Beijing’s exports this year can also be attributed to Chinese businesses pushing for higher market share in other countries, exacerbated by weak domestic demand, he said.

Southeast Asia and China have deeply interwoven supply chains and Washington has long accused Chinese manufacturers of “transshipping” -- having products pass through a country to avoid harsher trade barriers elsewhere. “Trade diversion remains evident,” Yue Su, principal economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told AFP.

“Much of this reflects... supply-chain diversification to avoid higher tariffs, a practice also seen during the first US-China trade war,” Su added.

Beijing has set an official goal of around five percent growth this year.

But it has struggled to maintain a strong economic recovery from the pandemic, as it fights a debt crisis in its massive property sector, chronically low consumption and elevated youth unemployment.

China’s factory output ticked up in August but still recorded a fifth straight month of contraction, official data showed, in a further sign that trade tensions were hitting the export-dependent economy.

At one point this year tit-for-tat US-China tariffs reached triple digits on both sides, snarling supply chains as many importers halted shipments to try and wait for the governments to settle matters.

Since then, Washington and Beijing have reached an agreement to de-escalate tensions, temporarily lowering tariffs to 30 percent on the United States’ side and 10 percent on China’s part.

In August, they delayed the threatened reimposition of higher tariffs on each other’s exports for another 90 days -- meaning the pause on steeper duties will be in place until November 10.