US and China eye Trump-Xi talks on AI guardrails despite tech rift

BEIJING, September 8 - China's trade exports witnessed a remarkable rise in August, driven by the surging global AI boom and the upcoming meeting between President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Donald Trump. After achieving a historic surplus in 2025, China's trade continued to soar this year, mainly fueled by increased demand for technology products, particularly semiconductors, computing hardware, and other AI-related goods.

According to the General Administration of Customs, exports surged by 25 percent year-on-year, a figure slightly below the 25.9 percent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Conversely, imports swelled by 28.2 percent, surpassing the 27.5 percent growth recorded in July but falling short of the 31.0 percent estimated by the Bloomberg survey.

The surge in trade has served as a vital lifeline for the Chinese economy during this challenging period, as domestic activity has been lagging behind. The heightened demand in the global AI sector has added to China's strengths in other sectors like electric vehicles, consumer goods, and industrial equipment. From January to August, exports of computers and related components soared by 49.4 percent, according to the customs data.

However, China's growing trade surpluses with several key trading partners have ignited a political debate, with officials overseas expressing concerns about the potential impact of Chinese imports on local businesses.

The United States government, as highlighted by Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, has made it clear at the G20 meeting that they are apprehensive about the trade imbalance issue. Shipments to the United States soared by 34.4 percent year-on-year last month, compared to the 17 percent increase seen in July.

These latest figures were released in the lead-up to Xi Jinping and Trump's anticipated high-stakes summit in Washington this month. Last year's US$1.1 trillion surplus in global trade, largely driven by strong growth in exports to the European Union, Southeast Asia, and Africa, helped offset a sharp decline in shipments to the United States, which suffered from the tariff war.