China's economy grew by 5.4% in the first three months of the year, the government announced on Wednesday. This growth was helped by strong exports before the US President, Donald Trump, significantly increased taxes on Chinese goods.

Experts predict that China's economy will grow much slower soon. This is because of the trade war and high taxes on goods from the US. China has also put high taxes on US goods, but says it wants to continue trading openly.

This week, China's leader, Xi Jinping, is visiting several Asian countries. He wants to support free trade and show that China is a stable and reliable partner when things are uncertain.

Xi Jinping visited Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. At the same time, the United States announced that a senior official, Sean O'Neill, would visit Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam this week. He would also go to Siem Reap in Cambodia and to Tokyo.

China is also showing that it wants to trade more with countries other than the US. It does this at different trade shows, where it shows off its big market and its strength as a manufacturing country.

Because of exports, China's economy grew by 5% last year, and the aim for this year is also about 5%.

A spokesperson said the new taxes will be difficult for China's economy in the short term, but they will not stop its growth in the long term.

Sheng said China's economy is strong and able to deal with problems, and it has a lot of possibility for growth.

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

China's exports increased by over 12% in March compared to the same time last year, and by almost 6% in the first three months of the year when measured in US dollars. Companies did this quickly to avoid new taxes planned by President Trump. This strong export activity has helped manufacturing stay busy recently.

Stephen Innes from SPI Asset Management said that much of this activity happened early on. It was caused by a lot of buying before the US increased taxes on imports. Also, importers in the US quickly bought many goods to be ready.

In the last three months, the amount of goods produced in factories increased by 6.5% compared to the same time last year. This was mainly because the production of equipment went up by almost 11%.

The biggest growth was in new technologies like electric and hybrid cars, which increased by 45.4% compared to the previous year. The production of 3D printers went up by almost 45%, and the number of industrial robots grew by 26%.

Although the Chinese economy has grown quite fast compared to other countries, it has found it difficult to get stronger since the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the first three months of the year, prices for goods and services went down a little. This shows that in many businesses, they are making more things than people are buying. Also, people didn't put much money into buying buildings or land, and spending went down by almost 10% compared to the year before. This happened even though the government tried to help people get more loans to buy houses.

The tariffs crisis is a big problem happening when China is trying hard to make businesses invest and employ more people, and to encourage shoppers to spend more money.

Economists in both private and public sectors are still careful about what might happen, because Trump keeps changing his mind about the details of his trade disagreements.

Because of what has happened in the last two weeks, it is very hard to know how the taxes on goods between the U.S. and China might change, said Tao Wang and other economists from UBS in a report.

The International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank still think the economy will grow by about 4.6% this year. This is a positive prediction.

After becoming president, Trump first increased taxes on goods from China by 10%. Later, he raised this tax to 20%. Now, China has to pay a 145% tax on most of the goods it sends to the United States.

UBS believes that if the taxes on goods stay around the same, China's exports to the US could decrease by two-thirds in the coming months. They also think that China's total exports to other countries might fall by 10% in value. UBS has reduced its prediction for economic growth this year from 4% to 3.4%. They expect growth to slow down to 3% in 2026.

Over the last seven months, China has worked harder to encourage people to spend more money and businesses to invest. They have given more money to people who exchange old cars and appliances for new ones. They have also provided more money for housing and other industries that needed financial help.