China announced on Wednesday the world’s largest trade surplus ever, even adjusting for inflation, as a tsunami of exports flooded markets around the world last year.

中國週三公布的數據顯示，隨著大量出口商品湧入全球市場，即使經通膨調整後，其去年的貿易順差仍創下全球有史以來的最高水平。

China’s surplus, the value of goods and services it sold abroad versus its imports, reached $1.19 trillion, an increase of 20 percent from 2024, according to data released by the country’s General Administration of Customs. The number had already exceeded $1 trillion through November.

The country’s surplus is still widening: for December alone, China’s surplus reached $114.14 billion. It was the third-highest monthly surplus on record, trailing only January and June last year.

而且順差仍在擴大：僅12月，中國的貿易順差就達到1141.4億美元，這是有記錄以來第三高的單月順差，僅次於去年1月和6月。

The enormous trade surplus for the full year came despite efforts by President Trump to use tariffs to contain China’s factories. The tariffs reduced China’s trade surplus with the United States. But Chinese factories increased sales to other regions, in many cases bypassing U.S. tariffs by shipping goods to the United States through Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

儘管川普總統曾試圖利用關稅遏制中國製造業，但中國去年全年仍創下巨額貿易順差。關稅雖削減了中國對美貿易順差，但中國企業通過向其他地區增加銷售——在許多情況下是借道東南亞等地向美國發貨，得以規避美國的關稅。

Also driving up China’s surplus in trade was the country’s chronic weakness in imports. Beijing’s leaders have pursued an ambitious industrial policy to replace imports with domestic production. Their goal has been to build national self-reliance in many industrial sectors.

推高中國貿易順差的另一個原因是其長期的進口疲軟。中國領導人推行雄心勃勃的產業政策，以國產替代進口。其目標是在眾多工業領域建立國家自主可控的產業體系。

China reaffirmed its self-reliance goals in October when it unveiled an initial sketch of its five-year plan for the economy through 2030.

At the same time, the spending power of many Chinese families to buy imported cars, cosmetics and other products has withered, and their purchases of domestically produced goods have faltered as well. Since 2021, a housing market crash has erased the life savings of many Chinese who had invested in property, leaving them with little ability to buy the flood of goods pouring out of the country’s factories.

與此同時，許多中國家庭購買進口汽車、化妝品及其他商品的消費能力已明顯下降，對國產商品的購買力也同樣走弱。自2021年以來，房地產市場的崩盤使眾多投資房產的中國居民畢生積蓄大幅縮水，導致他們無力購買國內工廠源源不斷生產出來的大量商品。

Much of those products are exported instead.

因此，其中很大一部分產品出口到海外市場。

China’s trade surplus has also been propelled by a weak currency, which makes the country’s goods less expensive in foreign markets and its imports more expensive. The government allowed the currency, the renminbi, to weaken considerably during the Covid-19 pandemic and has barely allowed it to recover since then, although there has been a slight rebound in the past several weeks.

人民幣匯率走弱也成為中國貿易順差擴大的推動力，這使中國商品在國際市場上更具價格競爭力，同時推高了進口成本。在新冠疫情期間，中國政府允許人民幣匯率大幅貶值，且至今未讓其充分回升——儘管最近幾週出現小幅反彈。

Inflation in the West has made China’s exports even more appealing in foreign markets. China suffers from deflation, a broad drop in prices prompted by widespread factory overcapacity combined with weak domestic demand.

西方國家的通膨壓力也進一步增強了中國出口商品在國際市場的吸引力。相比之下，中國正經歷通縮——由於工廠普遍產能過剩加上國內需求疲弱，導致整體價格水平下跌。

China’s trade surplus has expanded in many parts of the world. The European Union and some of the larger developing countries, such as Indonesia and India, have enacted targeted tariffs on specific categories of Chinese goods, but not the broad measures that Mr. Trump took last year.

China’s exports have grown particularly rapidly to Southeast Asia and Africa. Many companies in these regions, including subsidiaries of Chinese businesses, assemble components from China and then ship them to the United States, bypassing recently imposed American tariffs.

中國對東南亞和非洲的出口增長尤其迅速。這些地區的許多企業（包括中國公司的子公司）從中國進口零部件進行組裝，然後再把成品運往美國，從而繞開了美國最近實施的關稅。

China has not run a trade deficit since 1993. Its 2025 trade surplus far exceeds earlier records around the world even when adjusted for inflation.

中國自1993年以來從未出現貿易逆差。即便剔除通膨因素，其2025年貿易順差規模仍遠超世界各地此前的紀錄。

Japan’s surplus, for example, peaked in 1993 at $96 billion. That works out to $214 billion in today’s dollars, or less than a fifth of China’s surplus last year.

以日本為例，它的貿易順差於1993年達到960億美元的峰值，按現價換算約合2140億美元，尚不及中國去年順差規模的五分之一。

Germany ran huge trade surpluses in the years after Europe’s financial crisis a decade ago. But its surplus peaked in 2017 at a sum equal to $364 billion in today’s money.

德國在十年前歐洲金融危機之後的幾年裡也曾出現巨額貿易順差，但其峰值出現在2017年，按今天的美元價值計算約為3640億美元。

China trade surplus in manufactured goods now exceeds a 10th of the country’s entire economic output. That imbalance has created millions of jobs in China but has also led to factory closings and layoffs in other countries.

如今，中國製造業貿易順差已超過其整個經濟產出的十分之一。這種失衡格局在中國創造了數以百萬計的就業崗位，但也導致其他國家出現工廠倒閉和裁員浪潮。

After China’s trade surplus pushed past $1 trillion in the first 11 months of last year, Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, warned at a news conference in Beijing last month that China should allow its currency to strengthen and rely more on domestic consumer spending instead of ever-rising exports.

“As the second-largest economy in the world, China is simply too big to generate much growth from exports, and continuing to depend on export-led growth risks furthering global trade tensions,” she said.

她說：「作為全球第二大經濟體，中國體量太大，難以依靠出口實現高增長。堅持出口導向型增長模式恐將進一步激化全球貿易緊張局勢。」

China has been wary of allowing its currency to appreciate significantly, however. The many jobs in export factories are cushioning the broad harm to the economy from the bursting of the country’s housing market, with apartment prices that continue to decline steeply.

然而中國始終對貨幣大幅升值持審慎態度。在房地產市場泡沫破裂、房價持續大跌的背景下，出口製造業提供的龐大就業崗位緩解了經濟受到的廣泛衝擊。