In a year dominated by US President Donald Trump’s tariff war, a blizzard of tit-for-tat levies and stop-start trade negotiations, China’s $1tn surplus has made clear that it remains an unstoppable trade juggernaut.

While the country’s trade surplus with the US is more than $100bn lower so far this year compared with last year’s total, it has increased in a host of other destinations from south-east Asia to Europe. The result is a historic global goods surplus that reached $1.08tn in November, driven by $3.41tn of exports and surpassing every previous full-year total.

This week in Beijing, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva warned of China’s trade relation “imbalances”, which days earlier French President Emmanuel Macron said were becoming “unbearable”.