Editor's note: Liu Chunsheng, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate professor at the Beijing-based Central University of Finance and Economics. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The super-seller's efficiency revolution

In 2025, China's total goods trade reached 45.47 trillion yuan ($6.76 trillion), up 3.8% year-on-year, marking nine consecutive years of growth and securing its position as the world's largest goods trader. Exports stood at 26.99 trillion yuan, growing 6.1%. What truly matters is not the headline figure but the structure: mechanical and electrical products accounted for 16.47 trillion yuan, 61% of total exports, with growth of 8.9%. China's export base is no longer footwear and toys, but high-value-added manufactured goods.

New energy vehicles (NEVs) are the sharpest case in point. In 2025, China exported 7.098 million vehicles, ranking first globally for the third consecutive year. NEV exports hit 2.615 million units, surging 103.7%, nearly two in every five exported cars were electric. The International Energy Agency confirms the trend, in 2025, China produced 16 million electric cars, exceeding domestic demand by roughly 20%, pushing exports to over 2.5 million units, doubling from the previous year. This is not simply selling more. It is China's cost advantage across the full battery-motor-control chain pulling the global EV price curve downward. European consumers buying 20,000-euro SUVs and Southeast Asian markets accessing affordable hybrid pickups both feel the ripple effect of China's supply chain.

Photovoltaic tells a similar story. In 2025, China exported 249.8 GW of PV modules, up 5.7%, while solar cell exports surged 97.6%. Although export values declined amid falling prices, the volume growth means more regions worldwide are accessing cheaper clean energy.

At its core, the "super-seller" advantage is not low wages but an efficiency system built on complete industrial chains, scaled manufacturing, and continuous technological iteration. This system converts technological progress into affordable goods for global consumers. And that, precisely, is what globalization was always meant to be.

The super buyer, a market of 1.4 billion people is opening wider

If the export story has been told repeatedly, the import transformation remains vastly underappreciated. A severely underestimated fact is that China is accelerating from "selling to the world" toward "buying from the world."

The latest data is striking. In the first seven months of 2026, China's goods imports reached 12.69 trillion yuan, up 22% year-on-year, outpacing export growth for five consecutive months. In the first half year alone, imports surpassed 10 trillion yuan for the first time in any corresponding period, reaching 10.74 trillion yuan. Import growth outrunning export growth is not a short-term fluctuation but a structural signal: China's demand side is becoming a new engine of global trade growth.

What is being bought? Both "industrial grain" for production and quality upgrades for consumption. In H1 2026, imports of metal ores and concentrates grew 22.6%, and electronic components surged 45.6%, reflecting the enormous appetite of China's continuously upgrading manufacturing sector. Agricultural imports remain substantial, totaling approximately $207.41 billion in 2025, with edible oils and aquatic products growing 19.2% and 24.1% respectively in H1 2026. From Brazilian soybeans and Australian iron ore to Southeast Asian fruits and European premium consumer goods, China's absorptive capacity is providing stable orders and growth expectations for enterprises worldwide.

Equally significant is the acceleration of institutional opening-up. China has implemented zero tariffs on 63 countries and lowered its overall tariff level to 7.3%. Expanding platforms such as the China International Import Expo and the Consumer Expo, alongside booming cross-border e-commerce imports, mean the threshold for global SMEs to enter the Chinese market is substantially declining. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's cumulative imports exceeded 90 trillion yuan, with its share of global imports holding at around 10%. This is hardly the profile of a "closed market." It is a super-sized consumer market continuously opening to the world.

The two-way hub: a new anchor for globalization

Selling and buying may flow in opposite directions, but they share the same underlying logic, converting China's scale advantage into global efficiency dividends and market dividends.

On one end, China leverages complete industrial chains and scaled manufacturing to provide cost-effective goods, driving down costs in NEVs, automobiles, and home appliances, so that consumers in more countries enjoy the fruits of technological progress. On the other end, China's ultra-large market and expanding import demand deliver stable orders, vast opportunities, and sustained growth to global enterprises. These two roles are not mutually exclusive choices but two sides of the same coin: an economy of real weight must be both a supply center and a demand center.

Geographically, this two-way flow is reshaping the global trade map. In 2025, China's trade with Belt and Road partner countries reached 23.6 trillion yuan, up 6.3%, accounting for 51.9% of its total trade, crossing the halfway mark for the first time. China's trade partner structure is shifting from traditional Western markets toward a more diversified and balanced global network. As the principal trading partner of nearly 160 countries and regions, China's "hub status" is maintained not through military alliances or political coercion but through genuine supply-demand complementarity and shared interests.

Globalization has never been a one-way flow. An economy's value to the world lies both in what it supplies and in how large a market it creates. A truly healthy globalization does not demand that anyone produce or sell less; it enables more countries to discover their comparative advantages within a larger market and lets more consumers share the dividends of technological progress and international division of labor.