Are Chinese exports causing a protectionist backlash? Is it time to switch sourcing to ASEAN?

Two themes dominated trade policy this year: the possible fallout from Mr. Trump’s return to the White House and the “surge” in Chinese goods exports and the protectionist backlash it is said to have created, or risks creating.

These two themes could soon be drawn together if the next U.S. Administration raises import tariffs sharply on Chinese exports. Some may not support the reasons provided by Washington, D.C., for new import curbs. Still, they may feel that restrictive measures are called for because Chinese firms are flooding world markets.

By putting Chinese export dynamics in perspective,  in Briefings #46 and #53 we poured cold water on claims that a 2024 Chinese export surge is upending world markets. Rather than repeat those points, here I focus on the steps that governments around the world have actually taken since 1 January 2017 which affect the attractiveness of China as a sourcing location.

To sharpen the analysis, I compare the treatment of Chinese exporters with those from ASEAN. This puts on the table the possibility that trading partners may treat sourcing from Emerging Market (EM) East Asia little differently than China.

My focus here is on changes in import policy taken by foreign governments (both harmful to exporters and beneficial) since 1 January 2017. This timeframe covers both the first Trump and the Biden Administrations and so the first U.S.-China Trade War will be evident in the numbers presented here. The source of the unilateral import policy changes reported here is the Global Trade Alert database, see the Box at the end of this Briefing for details about that source.

Since 1 January 2017, foreign governments have erected 2,128 import curbs on products that China exports. Over the same timeframe, those same foreign governments have introduced more import reforms--2,970 in fact—covering the products that China exports. The vast majority of these policy changes involve changing tariff rates.

When it comes to import policy changes that only harm or benefit Chinese exporters, the former outnumber the latter 368 to 96. That’s consistent with some targeting of Chinese exports, which discourages sourcing from China. Even so, the vast majority of the new import curbs faced by China (and new import reforms for that matter) affect other countries’ exports too.

Further perspective can be found in benchmarking the treatment of Chinese exporters with those from the ASEAN region (home to 700 million people.) ASEAN’s exporters have been singled out for worse treatment by trading partners only 88 times and for better treatment 30 times. Overall, there is something to the argument that foreign trading partners have targeted Chinese exporters more often than peers from Emerging East Asia.

However, as Figures 1 & 2 show, that conclusion may no longer apply. In more recent years, the number of new import curbs imposed on ASEAN measures has caught up with those imposed on China. The gap started to narrow before the U.S.-China Trade War, suggesting that tariff-induced production relocation is not the sole driver. Plus, the number of new curbs introduced this year against Chinese exports is down from 2022-23.

Figure 1: Exports from EM East Asia are attracting new import curbs—not just China.  

Figure 2: Remarkably, EM East Asia’s exports benefit from import reforms than import curbs.

Note: In both of these figures, the data for 2024 (extracted on 6 December 2024) was compared with the number of measures reported over the same timeframe in earlier years. This ensures a fair comparison as the reporting interval for each year is the same.

Comparing Figures 1 and 2, it is evident that for years trading partners have taken more steps to open their markets to exports from China and ASEAN. This is very hard to square with the frequent references to the need for decoupling and derisking from China. Could it be that trade policy deliberation on both sides of the Atlantic is not representative of trade policy stance elsewhere? Projecting G7 & EU policy preferences on to other governments may be not advisable.

Enough of counts of policy changes, does the “protectionist backlash” show up in the share of Chinese exports exposed to worse trading conditions?

Figure 3 reports the annual shares of Chinese exports that faced new import restrictions implemented between 2017 and 6 December 2024. To see if the West has sought to discourage sourcing from China more than other governments, a further split between Chinese export exposure to G7 & EU import curbs and to the rest of the world is presented. Comparable statistics for ASEAN export exposure are provided as well.

Figure 3: Since 2018 the West’s import curbs cover more Chinese exports than other trading partners—but ASEAN has now caught up.

By 2024 a quarter of Chinese exports were exposed to import restrictions that were imposed since 2017. That means that three-quarters of Chinese exports currently do not face import curbs imposed since Donald Trump took office.

Even with the U.S—China Trade War, only 30% of Chinese exports to G7 & EU currently face import curbs imposed since the start of 2017. This outcome reflects the fact that no Western ally of the United States followed Washington, D.C., in imposing widespread tariffs on Chinese exports.

Figure 3 also shows that non-Western governments began to raise import barriers on more Chinese exports from 2020 on. Still, by 2024 over 75% of Chinese exports to non-G7 and non-EU destinations have not faced any new trade barriers over the past 7 years.

Benchmarking Chinese export exposure against that of ASEAN is revealing. During 2023 and 2024 more ASEAN exports faced new import curbs than their Chinese counterparts. Again, it is hard to make the case that China’s exports are being singled out for worse treatment than their East Asian emerging market peers.

When it comes to lowering trade barriers, there is a growing gap between the treatment of China and ASEAN exporters, as Figure 4 shows.

Since 2017, the share of ASEAN exports facing fewer or lower import barriers has grown over time to a third in 2024. While the comparable share for China rose over time---it plateaued in 2022 (which coincides with the last peak in Chinese exports as measured in USD terms, see our briefing #46). If anything, the share of Chinese exports to the G7 & EU nations facing improved trading conditions has fallen slightly in recent years.

Another difference that is evident in Figure 4 is that the shares of ASEAN exports benefiting from foreign trade reforms exceeds the comparable share for China in every year. Taking together the findings in Figure 3 and 4, what differentiates China from ASEAN peers is not a “protectionist backlash.” Rather it is trading partners’ greater reluctance to liberalise imports of those goods where China is an established exporter.

Figure 4: Larger shares of ASEAN exports benefit from trading partner’s import reforms than China.

Evidently, any future import tariff hikes by the U.S. against Chinese exports will discourage some sourcing from the Middle Kingdom. But remember that the entire U.S.-China bilateral trading relationship in goods accounts for less than 5% of the global goods trade. Only if many other nations follow Washington, D.C.’s lead will the commercial window for Chinese exports narrow markedly.

Whether one looks backward to developments since 2017 or forward to new American measures covering what remains of China’s exports to North America, the evidence points to limited explicit targeting of Chinese exports. For most, continued foreign sourcing from China is the likely outcome.

That ASEAN exporters are exposed more to trade reforms than their Chinese counterparts will nibble away at China’s attractiveness as an export platform. Overall, unless many nations join new U.S. trade measures against China, corporate derisking and decoupling from China are likely to remain localised phenomena.

Box: How the data was assembled for this briefing.

This briefing focuses on import policy changes implemented since 1 January 2017, soon before Donald Trump’s first inauguration. Only import policy changes that were implemented are included in the statistics presented here. Announcements (even on social media!) that are not followed through with implementation do not count. The focus then is on what governments actually do, not what they say they do or what they might do. The source of the policy changes is the Global Trade Alert database, which has consistently followed the same methodology for tracking commercial policy changes for over 15 years.

To be included in the Global Trade Alert database as an implemented measure, a policy change must meet seven criteria described in detail in section 3 of this methodological handbook. The most important criteria are that the import policy change must be unilateral (so not taken as part of the implementation of a bilateral, regional, or plurilateral trade agreement), that the policy change alter the relative treatment of domestic firms vis-à-vis some class of foreign rivals, that the policy change involve meaningful change (taken to mean the policy change is not inconsequential or de minimis) and that there is credible action by the implementing government (a condition satisfied by every state act where implementation can be documented).

Over 97% of all entries in the Global Trade Alert have been based on official documentation or documentation that states require companies to publish. In the case of import policy changes the latter is not relevant and almost every entry is backed up by the official source, which can be accessed from the relevant page on the Global Trade Alert website.

For the purposes of this briefing import policy changes were taken to include: changes in import tariff rates, changes in import tariff rate quotas and similar quantitative measures, imposition of duties following unfair trade investigations and inquiries into import surges, and imposition of additional taxes on imported goods. Changes in domestic regulations affecting imports (so called TBT and SPS measures in trade policy parlance) were not included in the statistics presented here and are not found in the Global Trade Alert.

An entry in the Global Trade Alert database covering merchandise trade includes, where they can be credibly identified, the relevant product codes (HS codes) in the United Nations Harmonized System. Combined with the UN COMTRADE database, this allows for automated identification of the trading partners affected by any import policy change. The methodology employed for identifying product costs and affected trading partners is described in the handbook mentioned earlier.

Consequently, an import policy change is associated with an implementing jurisdiction (formally, a customs territory), with a policy instrument type, with an implementation (and potentially a phase out) date, with a list of products covered by the import policy change, and with the trading partners affected.

Identifying the affected trading partners in this manner enables users of the Global Trade Alert database to track how many import policy changes affect the exports of China, the ASEAN member economies, and in fact, any trading nation. So, it is possible to count the number of new import policy changes each year that create new commercial opportunities for China (ASEAN) exporters and the number of import policy changes each year that impede sourcing from China (ASEAN).

Furthermore, using established methods, it is possible to calculate the share of China’s (ASEAN’s) exports to particular export destinations (could be the world, to the G7 and EU members, or to the rest of the world) that face harmful (liberalising) import policy changes in force for a given year. The trade flow associated with each policy intervention is weighed by the number of days the measure was in force in a given year.

Import policy changes that lapse no longer count towards export coverage calculations in subsequent years and so the export coverage totals can rise, fall, or stagnate. Nothing in the manner by which those exposure totals are calculated requires that they must rise over time. Lastly, steps are taken to ensure there is no double counting of exports covered by import policy changes, which would artificially inflate the totals. 

Simon J. Evenett, an international trade economist, is Professor of Geopolitics & Strategy at IMD Business School, Switzerland. He is also Founder of the St. Gallen Endowment for Prosperity Through Trade, home of the independent monitoring initiatives Global Trade Alert, Digital Policy Alert and the New Industrial Policy Observatory and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Trade & Investment.