This past week, China’s commerce ministry said that trade growth is getting better and that after May’s 15.3% jump in exports authorities are saying that there is good export momentum in June.

If we are to consider China’s term export trends of the last 2 years, however, these green shoots maybe noise in the otherwise very negative downward export trend.

Chart above from Dallas Fed’s latest International Economic Update maybe visually captivating for its huge loop but the chart’s handle, from 2010 onwards, is perhaps more dramatic especially if one consider the scale of that steady export deterioration: from peak of 50% export growth in 2010,
the growth is making friends with the zero line.

Nor can the entire steady deterioration trend be blamed on Europe even though exports ex-Europe seem to be diverging.

With so much of China’s GDP derived from these exports, the predictable steadiness in the export deterioration, ironically, can be looked with some sense of reassurance that China, much to the expectations by some, may not fall off the cliff.