businessinchina

I've run a business in China for over a decade and follow the macroeconomic situation here closely.

Here's the deal:

The Chinese economy became investment-driven instead of export-driven following the Great Financial Crisis. Exports are less important to GDP than real estate construction and infrastructure development (subways, high speed rail, bridges, etc).

In terms of exports, Europe is the biggest trading partner, not the US. The US is number 2.

The Chinese economy has a big problem: the government can drive GDP as much as it wants via state-driven investment and debt, but much of that is malinvestment and the debt cannot be self-funded. So there is and has been a large debt problem. This is why the Chinese economy has been slowing and the government has not found a politically acceptable way to tackle the problem.

The US trade war is basically kicking the Chinese economy while it's already down, but it's not the key source of the problems here.