The writer is a professor at Cornell, senior fellow at Brookings and author of the forthcoming ‘The Doom Loop: Why the World Economic Order Is Spiraling into Disorder’
China’s trade surplus hit $1tn in just the first 11 months of 2025. This ought to be a warning sign to Beijing and the rest of the world.
The burgeoning trade surplus dramatically illustrates China’s export prowess. Equally, though, it highlights problems with its economy and the government’s policies. Beijing’s ambitions to portray itself as the defender of the rules-based system of global trade and promote its currency’s prominence in international finance will also be thwarted by such a large surplus.