China's economy grew by 5.4% from January to March, the government said on Wednesday. This growth was helped by strong exports before the U.S. increased taxes on Chinese goods.

Experts think China's economy will grow slower soon because of the trade war with the US.

China's leader, Xi Jinping, is visiting some other countries in Asia this week. He is talking about why free trade is good and saying that China can help make things stable and sure when times are not certain.

Xi visited Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. The U.S. said that Sean O'Neill from the State Department would visit Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City this week. He would also go to Siem Reap in Cambodia and to Tokyo.

China is also showing it wants to trade more with countries other than the US. It shows this at different trade fairs. At these fairs, China shows how big its market is and how good it is at making things.

Exports helped China's economy grow by 5% in 2024. This year, the government wants it to grow by about 5%.

A government spokesperson said that the new taxes will make China's economy a little weaker now, but they will not stop it from growing in the future. He also said that China sells fewer things to America than before.

China's economy is strong and can deal with problems. We are sure we can face challenges from outside and reach our goals, Sheng said.

From January to March, the economy grew by 1.2%. This is slower than the growth of 1.6% in the last three months of 2024.

In March, China sold 12% more goods than last year. In the first three months, they sold almost 6% more, measured in US dollars. Businesses did this quickly because they wanted to sell before new taxes from President Trump started. This helped factories make many products in the last few months.

Most of this happened early because companies bought things before the US increased taxes. Importers also wanted to have many goods ready.

Factories made 6.5% more things than in the same time last year. This was mainly because they made almost 11% more equipment.

There was strong growth in making advanced technology things like electric cars and 3D printers.

Even though China's economy grew quite fast compared to other countries, it has been hard for it to get strong again after COVID-19. This is because problems with houses have made more people lose their jobs, and this makes families careful about spending money.

Prices for things people buy went down a little (0.1%) in the first three months of the year. This might mean that companies are making more things than people want to buy. Also, people were not buying many houses or buildings. This part of the economy went down by almost 10% compared to last year, even though the government tried to help people borrow more money to buy homes.

A possible problem with taxes is coming. This is bad because China wants businesses to spend money and hire more people, and they want people to buy more things.

Economists in companies and the government are still careful about what will happen because Trump keeps changing his ideas about the details of his trade war.

It is hard to know how the taxes between the U.S. and China will change because of what happened in the last two weeks, said Tao Wang and other experts from UBS in a report.

The International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank think the economy will grow by about 4.6% this year.

When Trump became president, he first put a small tax on things from China. Later, he made the tax bigger. Now, China has to pay a very big tax on most things it sells to the United States.

UBS believes that if the taxes on goods stay about the same, China might sell much less to the US in the next few months. They think China's sales to all countries might go down by 10% in money value. UBS also changed its guess for how much China's economy will grow this year. They now think it will grow by 3.4% instead of 4%. They expect growth to be 3% in 2026.

In the last seven months, China has tried harder to get people to spend more money and to help private companies. They gave extra money to people who traded in old cars or appliances for new ones. They also gave more money for homes and other businesses that needed help with money.