COVID Vs. Trade Wars: China Leads the Export Race

(October 2022) The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 had, without doubt, triggered essential risks and uncertainties on global trade, which by that time had already been subdued by US- China trade war.

China began to promote the resumption of work and production orderly after the pandemic was effectively contained in late February 2020. In May 2020, the resumption of work and production in China progressed in an orderly manner. In sharp contrast, COVID-19 broke out in countries in the Americas and Europe without being timely controlled. Cross-border air transportation and the global supply chains were then severely impacted or even interrupted.

• Data on global trade shows that China has become the major beneficiary of COVID related disruptions. Though the pandemic caused severe declines in China's trade with its major trade partners, but China's trade recovered rapidly and relatively strongly after the second half of 2020. As result, the share of China's exports in world exports increased to 14.9% in 2020 and record 15.3% in 2021. At the same time the share of developed countries in world exports continued to decline.
• The mechanical & electrical and the high-tech industries have contributed significantly to the recovery of China's exports. Exports of medical products, furniture and appliances show growth in line with the implementation of quarantine policies. Exports of electronic products and electrical vehicles kept growing both before the outbreak and during the pandemic.

Compared with the world's leading trade nations, the COVID-19 has had overall devastating but not persistent impacts on China's trade. China has spent incalculably large costs to control and prevent the epidemic in 2020, but this has also allowed China to achieve a stable and strong recovery more quickly than other nations, and the evidence in trade figures supports China's strategy.