China\u2019s trade surplus has smashed through the $1trn mark in the first 11 months of 2025 \u2013 a record that underscores how dramatically global container flows have shifted this year, even as trade with the US slumps nearly 29%.<\/p>\n
The headline figure, released by Chinese customs, highlights two simultaneous trends that have reshaped the global liner landscape: collapsing transpacific volumes to the US, and surging exports to emerging markets and non-traditional trade partners.<\/p>\n
China-US liftings have been in structural decline throughout 2025, weighed down by Trump\u2019s protectionism, near-shoring, inventory corrections, and a wave of trade-diversion strategies among American importers. Yet the shortfall has been more than offset by booming demand from Latin America, the Middle East, Russia-adjacent markets, and parts of Africa and South Asia.<\/p>\n
No other shipping sector has seen this shift more clearly than container shipping<\/p>\n
Operators on the Asia to Latin America, Middle East and Africa trades have experienced double-digit volume growth this year, prompting a string of service upgrades, extra-loaders and cascading of larger tonnage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTraditional trade patterns are being rewritten as China redirects exports from tariff-impacted US markets toward Europe (+10-15%), Africa (+20-25%), and intra-Asian lanes (+6-8%), while emerging markets-led by India, Philippines, and East Africa-accelerate their rise,\u201d noted a new report from Vizion, an American container tracking platform.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Faced with US tariff barriers, Chinese exporters executed what Vizion described as \u201ca remarkable geographic pivot\u201d in 2025. Vizion data shows US-bound bookings from China are down 8-12% this year compared to 2024, while Europe-bound bookings are up by 10-15%, Africa-bound bookings are up a remarkable 20-25%, while ASEAN-bound bookings are up 6-8%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Looking at the trade surplus news, Lars Jensen, one of the world\u2019s most famous experts on container shipping, told Splash: \u201cIt basically tells us that China has been quite capable of ramping up their sales to other markets in the face of the US trade war. It is also reflected in container volumes, which have seen growing more than usual in many non-US trades during 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n
Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, a container freight rate platform, said: \u201cChina has really been flexing it\u2019s trade muscle in 2025, showing the results of what\u2019s been in the making for a decade \u2013 finding long term options to its traditional, yet past-peak consuming destination for manufactured exports, something that has been fast forwarded by the US-China trade war. No other shipping sector has seen this shift more clearly than container shipping.\u201d<\/p>\n
To cater for this shift, Sand said carriers have been agile to rejig services and capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more complex than ever before to grasp the whereabouts of global container shipping networks,\u201d Sand told Splash.<\/p>\n