China's leader, Xi Jinping, is visiting some countries in Asia this week. He is talking about free trade. He wants to show that China can help things be stable and sure when times are not certain.

While Xi was in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia, the U.S. said that a senior official, Sean O'Neill, would go this week to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Siem Reap in Cambodia, and Tokyo.

At trade fairs, China has shown that it wants to trade more with countries other than the US.

Because of exports, China's economy grew by 5% in 2024. This year, the government hopes it will grow by about 5% again.

A government spokesperson said the new taxes will make China's economy a little weaker for a short time, but they will not stop it from growing in the future. He also said that China sells less to the US now than it did five years ago.

Sheng said, "China's economy is strong and can deal with problems. It can also grow a lot. We are sure that we can manage problems from outside and reach our goals."

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 a lot more things to other countries in March than last year, and also in the first three months. Companies did this because they wanted to sell things before Trump's new taxes started. This helped factories in China stay busy for many months.

Stephen Innes from SPI Asset Management said that most of this happened at the start.

Making things in factories went up by 6.5% compared to last year. This happened mostly because making machines and tools increased by almost 11%.

The biggest increase was in new technologies, like making electric cars. This went up a lot in one year, by 45.4%. Making 3D printers went up by almost 45%, and making industrial robots went up by 26%.

Although China's economy grew quite fast compared to other countries, it has been slow to get strong again after COVID-19. This is because problems in the housing market have caused more people to lose their jobs, so families are careful about spending money.

Prices for things people buy went down a little in the first three months of the year. This may mean that people are not buying as much as companies are making. Also, people were not buying many houses or buildings, even though the government tried to help people borrow money to buy them. Buying property went down by almost 10% compared to last year.

A big problem with taxes on goods is coming. This is bad timing because China wants companies to invest and hire more people, and for Chinese shoppers to buy more.

Both business and government money experts are still careful because Trump keeps changing his mind about his trade war plans.

It is hard to say what will happen with the taxes the U.S. and China put on each other. This is because of what happened in the last two weeks, according to Tao Wang and other experts from UBS.

The International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank 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 most things it sells to the United States.

UBS believes that if the taxes stay similar, China might sell much less to the US, perhaps two-thirds less. They also think China's total sales to other countries might decrease by 10% in money value. Because of this, UBS lowered their prediction for how much China's economy will grow this year. They now predict it will grow by 3.4%, instead of 4%. For 2026, they expect growth to be slower, at 3%.

In the last seven months, China has worked harder to encourage people to spend more and businesses to invest. They gave more help to people buying new cars and appliances by trading in old ones. They also gave more money to industries that needed help, like housing.