This week, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is visiting several Asian countries. He is promoting free trade and presenting China as a source of stability and certainty during uncertain times.

Xi visited Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. The U.S. also said a high official, Sean O'Neill, would visit Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Siem Reap in Cambodia, and Tokyo this week.

China is showing at different trade shows that it wants to trade more with countries other than the US. It wants to show its large market and strong manufacturing.

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

A government spokesperson said that new taxes on goods from China will cause some problems for China's economy for a short time. But he also said these taxes will not stop the economy from growing in the future. He added that China now sells less than 15% of its goods to the United States, which is less than the 19% it sold five years ago.

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

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

China sold many more products to other countries in March than before, and this helped factories make a lot of things.

Stephen Innes said that this happened early. It was because businesses acted before US taxes went up. Also, importers bought many goods quickly so they would be ready.

Factories made 6.5% more products than last year. Making machines and tools went up by almost 11%.

Growth was strongest in new technologies like electric and hybrid cars. These cars increased a lot compared to the year before. Making 3D printers went up a lot, and industrial robots increased a lot.

The Chinese economy grew quite fast compared to other countries. But after the COVID-19 sickness, it has been slow to get strong again. This is because the housing market is not doing well, and more people have lost their jobs. Because of this, families are careful about spending money.

Prices for things people buy went down a little in the first three months. This means people are not buying as much as businesses are making. People also didn't spend much money on houses. They bought almost 10% less than last year. This happened even though the government tried to make it easier to borrow money for houses.

The problem with taxes is a big difficulty for China. At this time, China wants companies to invest and hire more people. It also wants Chinese shoppers to buy more things.

Experts in businesses and the government are still careful about what might happen because Trump keeps changing his ideas about the details of his trade war.

Because of what happened in the last two weeks, it is very hard to know how the US and China's taxes on each other might change, according to a report by Tao Wang and other experts.

Two big financial groups, the IMF and ADB, still think the economy will grow by about 4.6% this year.

When Trump became president, he first put a 10% tax on things from China. Later, he made the tax 20%. Now, China has to pay a 145% tax on many things it sells to the U.S.

UBS thinks that if the taxes stay about the same, China might sell a lot less to the United States. They also think China's total sales to other countries could go down by 10%. UBS changed their guess for how much China's economy will grow this year to 3.4% instead of 4%. They think growth will be slower, at 3%, in 2026.

In the last seven months, China has tried harder to get people to spend more money and companies to invest. They gave extra money to people who exchanged old cars and appliances for new ones. They also gave more money to industries that needed help, like building homes.