$1.04 trillion in ten months, and imports that finally ran faster

China’s customs office published its October tables on Tuesday, and the headline did what headlines do. Exports were $412.3 billion, up 35.2% on the year; imports were $307.1 billion, up 41.6%; the month’s surplus was $105.3 billion¹. For January to October, the surplus reached $1.04 trillion, the fastest China has ever reached that mark, against a record $1.2 trillion for all of 2025^1,2.

Now the quieter half. Imports beat forecasts by a distance: a Caixin survey of 11 institutions expected 31.6% growth, and Reuters-polled economists around 32%^2,3. CNBC’s calculation from the official figures put high-tech imports up 72% by value; crude, LNG and coal imports rose about 41%, 50% and 60%². “Imports were still dominated by AI trade,” said Tianchen Xu of the Economist Intelligence Unit². ING’s Lynn Song noted that surplus growth slowed to a six-month low in October because imports surged².

Two cautions sit inside the same release. Caixin reports that much of the export growth came from rising prices rather than shipment volumes³. And month on month, customs shows exports down 7.8% from September and imports down 2.2%¹. Desk arithmetic: $412.33 billion of exports minus $307.05 billion of imports leaves $105.28 billion, the balance customs prints.

The politics run alongside the ledger. Trading partners have pressed Beijing to lean on domestic demand, and the IMF has repeatedly urged a pivot toward consumption, while September retail sales grew only 1.1%². Shipments to the EU rose 24.4% while imports from it fell more than 4%, a $33.4 billion monthly surplus². Citi’s Yuanliu Hu expects export growth to slow to 8% in 2027 as base effects fade².

For you, the contrarian reading is modest: a trillion-dollar surplus is not a weapon, and an import surge is not a rebalancing. It is a factory economy buying chips, copper and fuel to make more of what the world is ordering. The invoices are public every month. That is worth more than any speech about them.